In the mornings, when he first put his weight upon it, his head
went dizzy, and he was near to fainting from the pain; but later on
in the day it usually grew numb, to recommence when he crawled into
his blankets and tried to sleep. Yet he, who had been a clerk and
sat at a desk all his days, toiled till the Indians were exhausted,
and even out-worked the dogs. How hard he worked, how much he
suffered, he did not know. Being a man of the one idea, now that
the idea had come, it mastered him. In the foreground of his
consciousness was Dawson, in the background his thousand dozen
eggs, and midway between the two his ego fluttered, striving always
to draw them together to a glittering golden point. This golden
point was the five thousand dollars, the consummation of the idea
and the point of departure for whatever new idea might present
itself. For the rest, he was a mere automaton. He was unaware of
other things, seeing them as through a glass darkly, and giving
them no thought. The work of his hands he did with machine-like
wisdom; likewise the work of his head. So the look on his face
grew very tense, till even the Indians were afraid of it, and
marvelled at the strange white man who had made them slaves and
forced them to toil with such foolishness.
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