tive old face was riotous with joy. He was
going home--_home_! Safe and sober, with forty dollars and a clean
conscience, more than had been his in many a day.

"You bet I kin!" he bellowed back. "You're all right, Cass!"

Cassidy sniffed and turned again toward the town. "I don't reckon I
c'u'd stand these yere chuck-ranches off fer a meal," he soliloquized,
"not lookin' the way I am. To-morrow's all right; I'll be workin'
then. To-day--" He paused and ran his hand over his forehead. "Well,
to-day I reckon it'll be Mike's again--if he'll stand fer it."

And Mike fed him. Cassidy was harmless now. The fact that he asked for
food proved it. Mike knew it; Cassidy knew it.

The rear of the saloon was partitioned off into a "Ladies' Room,"
whose door opened on the alkali flat behind. From thence came the
monotonous drone of a murmured conversation. Cassidy tried
ineffectually to follow it, but the droning of the voices and the
steady hum of the flies around the beer lees on the bar made him
sleepy. Outside it was stiflingly hot. Over on the grade the horses
were choking and snorting in the dust, while the shambling-gaited men
cursed steadily and heaved at the heavy scrapers. The little patch of
blue in the doorway was twinkling with heat. Far out on the yellow
plain, a grotesque-armed joshua lurched from side to side.

Cassidy felt a hand on his shoulder. "Do you want a drink?" asked
Mike. "If you do, go in there and earn it. Talk to her. She's in hard
luck."

Cassidy arose obediently, and with not a little timidity ventured to
open the door and peer within.

"Come in," said a woman's voice, and Cassidy, not knowing why or why
not, went in.

"Put your hat on the coffin and have a chair," said the woman. "I've
looked and looked, and I can't see any table in this room."

Cassidy shuffled to a seat in a moment of surprise, and looked
guardedly about him. There was, in fact, no table. Indubitably there
was a coffin.

"That's my husband," said the woman. "Want to see him?"

"N-n-no, ma'am," Cassidy stammered hastily.

The woman nodded appreciatively. "Few does," she said, "and I guess it
wouldn't do yuh much good. What's the matter with yuh? Yuh don't seem
right well."

"No, ma'am," Cassidy confessed; "I ain't very well to-day."

The woman smiled a little. There was a pause. "How long have yuh been
drinkin'?" she asked in a gentle voice.

"'Bout five days now," said Cassidy, reddening to the tips of his ears