for him at this time with grudging slowness.

"How are ye, Slater? Set ye down."

"I hear you've sold your saloons," Slater began, as he settled into
place.

Haney nodded, without smiling.

His neighbor grinned. "You don't seem very sociable to-day, Mart?"

"I'm not," Haney replied, bluntly.

"I just dropped down beside you to say that young Wilkinson went broke
in your place last night and has it in for you. He's plum fuzzy with
drink, and you better look sharp or he'll do you. He's been on the
rampage for two days--crazy as a loon."

"Why does he go after me?" Haney asked, irritably. "I'm out of it. 'Tis
like the fool tenderfoot. Don't he know I had nothing to do with his
bust-up?"

"He don't seem to--or else he's so locoed he's forgot it. All I know is
he's full of some pizen notion against you, and I thought I'd put you on
your guard."

They talked on about this a few minutes, and then Slater rose, leaving
Haney to himself. But his tender mood was gone. His brow was knit. He
began to understand that a man could not run a bad business for twenty
years, and then at a day's notice clear himself of all its trailing evil
consequences. "I'll vamoose," he said to himself, with resolution. "I'll
put me mines in order, and go down into the valley and take the girl
with me--God bless her! We'll take a little turn as far as New York.
I'll put long miles between the two of us and all this sporting record
of mine. She don't like it, and I'll quit it. I'll begin a new life
entirely." And a glow of new-found virtue filled his heart. Of Wilkinson
he had no fear--only disgust. "Why should the fool pursue me?" he
repeated. "He took his chances and lost out. If he weren't a 'farmer'
he'd drop it."

He ate his supper at the hotel in the same abstraction, and then, still
grave with plans for his new career, went out into the street to find
Williams, his partner. It was inevitable that he should bring up at the
bar of his former saloon; no other place in the town was so much like
home, after all. Habit drew him to its familiar walls. He was glad to
find a couple of old friends there, and they, having but just heard of
the sale of his outfit, hastened to greet and congratulate him. Of his
greatest good-fortune, of his highest conquest, they, of course, knew
nothing, and he was not in a mood to tell them of it.

The bar-room was nearly empty, for the reason that the miners had not
yet finished their evening meal, and Haney a