I was just drunk enough to think it was a
joke, I suppose, and let it go that way. I don't believe she found out
she tied up to the wrong man. It's entirely my fault, for being drunk."

"Well, putting it that way, you're right about it," agreed the adaptable
Lew. "Of course, if you hadn't been--"

"If whisky's going to let a fellow in for things like this, it's time to
cut it out altogether." Ford was looking at the agent attentively.

"That's right," assented the other unsuspectingly. "Whisky is sure
giving you the worst of it all around. You ought to climb on the
water-wagon, Ford, and that's a fact. Whisky's the worst enemy you've
got."

"Sure. And I'm going to punish all of it I can get my hands on!" He
turned toward the door. "And when I'm good and full of it," he added as
an afterthought, "I'm liable to come over here and lick you, Lew, just
for being such an agreeable cuss. You better leave your mother's address
handy." He laughed a little to himself as he pulled the door shut behind
him. "I bet he'll keep the frost thawed off the window to-day, just to
see who comes up the platform," he chuckled.

He would have been more amused if he had seen how the agent ducked
anxiously forward to peer through the ticket window whenever the door of
the waiting room opened, and how he started whenever the snow outside
creaked under the tread of a heavy step; and he would have been
convulsed with mirth if he had caught sight of the formidable billet of
wood which Lew kept beside his chair all that day, and had guessed its
purpose, and that it was a mute witness to the reputation which one Ford
Campbell bore among his fellows. Lew was too wise to consider for a
moment the revolver meant to protect the contents of the safe. Even the
unintelligent know better than to throw a lighted match into a keg of
gunpowder.

Ford leaned backward against the push of the storm and was swept up to
the hotel. He could not remember when he had felt so completely baffled;
the incident of the girl and the ceremony was growing to something very
like a calamity, and the mystery which surrounded it began to fret him
intolerably; and the very unusualness of a trouble he could not settle
with his fists whipped his temper to the point of explosion. He caught
himself wavering, nevertheless, before the wind-swept porch of the hotel
"office." That, too, was strange. Ford was not wont to hesitate before
entering a saloon; more often he hesitated about