Loading Data

I'm a complete noob here, but I'm having trouble loading data into octave using a script.  I can do it from the command line no problem by doing the following:

load ('torque.txt');
x = torque;
plot (x);

but within a script it pukes when trying to assign x.  Any ideas?  BTW, I'm using Windows and the latest version of Octave.  Thanks,

Tweed