red carrying
a bottle and glasses.

"Good, Blink, old pard," said Pan, breathing heavily. "Louise and I
have just made up our minds to get drunk together. Blink, you stay
sober."

"I cain't stay what I ain't," retorted Blinky. "An' I won't stay heah,
either, to see her drink. I hate her then."

She poured the dark red liquor out into the glasses. "Boy, I want you
to hate me. I'll make you hate me... Here's to Panhandle Smith!"

While she drank Blinky moved backwards to the door, eyes glinting
brightly into Pan's and then he was gone.

In the mood under which Pan labored, liquor had no effect upon him but
to act as fire to body and mind. The girl, however, was transformed
into another creature. Bright red spots glowed in her cheeks, her eyes
danced and dilated, her whole body answered to the stimulus. One drink
led to another. She could not resist the insidious appetite thus
created. She did not see whether Pan drank or not. She grew funny,
then sentimental, and finally lost herself in that stage of unnatural
abandon for which, when sober, she frankly confessed she drank.

Pan decided that presently he would wrap a blanket around her, pick her
up and pack her out. Blinky would shoot out the lights in the saloon,
and the rest would be easy. If she knew that Hardman was in the house,
as Pan had suspected, she had now no memory of it.

"You big handsome devil," she called Pan. "I told you--to keep away
from me."

"Louise, don't make love to me," replied Pan.

"Why not? Men are all alike."

"No, you're wrong. You forget what you said a little while ago. I've
lost my sweetheart, and my heart is broken."

She leered at him, and offered him another drink. Pan took the glass
away from her. It was possible he might overdo his part.

"So you're liable to marry young Hardman?" he asked deliberately.

The question, the name, gave her pause, as if they had startled her
memory.

"Sure I am."

"But, Louise, how can you marry Hardman when he already has a wife?"
asked Pan.

She grasped that import only slowly, by degrees.

"You lie, you gun-slinging cowboy!" she cried.

"No, Louise. He told me so himself."

"He did! ... When?" she whispered, very low.

"Today. He was at the stage office. He meant to leave today. He was
all togged up, frock coat, high hat.... Oh, God--Louise, I know, I
_know_, because it--was--my--sweetheart--he married."

Pan ended gaspingly. What agony to speak th