"
"Do you never take a gun with you?"
"Of course," she answered, nodding, as though he could see. "I get wild
pigeons and sometimes a wild duck or a prairie-hen."
"That's right," he remarked; "that's right."
"I don't believe in walking just for the sake of walking," she continued.
"It doesn't do you any good, but if you go for something and get it,
that's what puts the mind and the body right."
Suddenly his face grew grave. "Yes, that's it," he remarked.
"To go for something you want, a long way off. You don't feel the fag
when you're thinking of the thing at the end; but you've got to have the
thing at the end, to keep making for it, or there's no good going--none
at all. That's life; that's how it is. It's no good only walking--you've
got to walk somewhere. It's no good simply going--you've got to go
somewhere. You've got to fight for something. That's why, when they take
the something you fight for away--when they break you and cripple you,
and you can't go anywhere for what you want badly, life isn't worth
living."
An anxious look came into her face. This was the first time, since
recovering consciousness, that he had referred, even indirectly, to all
that had happened. She understood him well--ah, terribly well! It was the
tragedy of the man stopped in his course because of one mistake, though
he had done ten thousand wise things.
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