k with a hard, gnarled palm, but was unable
to arouse him from a profound stupor.

"He ain't right strong," Sim observed with a trace of contempt, propping
the figure in a limp angle against the wall. It was dark now, and he lit
the hand lantern, cautiously closing the door. Outside the whippoorwills
had begun to call. A determined rattling of pots and pans sounded from the
kitchen.

"How much is in her, Gord?" Sim asked.

Gordon Makimmon investigated the jug. "She's near three quarters full," he
announced.

An expression of profound content settled upon Simeon Caley. The jug went
round and round. Gordon grew a shade more punctilious than customary, he
wiped the jug's mouth before passing it to Sim--at the premature
retirement of Rutherford the glasses had been discarded as effete; but not
a degree of the other's manner betrayed the influence of his Gargantuan
draughts of liquor. The lantern flickered on the sloping, cobwebby roof,
on the shaggy horses as they lay clumsily down to rest, on the crumpled
figure of Gordon's sister's husband.

The potations were suddenly interrupted by a sharp knocking from without.
An expression of concern instantly banished Sim's content; he gazed
doubtfully at the jug, then, as Gordon made no move, rose and with marked
diffidence proceeded to open the door. The lantern light fell on the
gaunt, bitter countenance of his wife framed in imponderable night. Her
eyes made liquid gleams in the wavering radiance which, directed at
Gordon, seemed to be visible points of hatred.

"It's ten o'clock," she said to her husband, "and if you hain't got enough
sense to go to bed I'll put you."

"I'm coming right along," he assured her pacifically; "we were just having
a drink around."

"Mrs. Berry's asking for her husband," she added, gazing at that insensate
form.

"He must be kind of bad to his stomach," Sim remarked; "he dropped with
nothing 'tall on him." He bent and picked the other up. Rutherford Berry's
arms hung limply over Sim's grasp, his feet dragged heavily, in unexpected
angles, over the floor. "Coming, Gord?"

Gordon made no reply. He sat intent upon the jug before him. Simeon
considerately shut the door. At regular intervals Gordon Makimmon took a
long drink. He drank mechanically, without any evidence of desire or
pleasure; he resembled a man blindly performing a fatiguing operation in
his sleep; he had the fixed, open eyes of a sleep-walker, the precise,
unnatural movements