d with the press of business and involved in the final conference
with the League's lawyers on the eve of the latter's departure for
Washington, Annixter had missed the train that was to take him back to
Guadalajara and Quien Sabe. Accordingly, he had accepted the Governor's
invitation to return with him on his buck-board to Los Muertos, and
before leaving Bonneville had telephoned to his ranch to have young
Vacca bring the buckskin, by way of the Lower Road, to meet him at
Los Muertos. He found her waiting there for him, but before going on,
delayed a few moments to tell Harran of Dyke's affair.

"I wonder what he will do now?" observed Harran when his first outburst
of indignation had subsided.

"Nothing," declared Annixter. "He's stuck."

"That eats up every cent of Dyke's earnings," Harran went on. "He has
been ten years saving them. Oh, I told him to make sure of the Railroad
when he first spoke to me about growing hops."

"I've just seen him," said Presley, as he joined the others. "He was at
Caraher's. I only saw his back. He was drinking at a table and his back
was towards me. But the man looked broken--absolutely crushed. It is
terrible, terrible."

"He was at Caraher's, was he?" demanded Annixter.

"Yes."

"Drinking, hey?"

"I think so. Yes, I saw a bottle."

"Drinking at Caraher's," exclaimed Annixter, rancorously; "I can see HIS
finish."

There was a silence. It seemed as if nothing more was to be said. They
paused, looking thoughtfully on the ground.

In silence, grim, bitter, infinitely sad, the three men as if at that
moment actually standing in the bar-room of Caraher's roadside saloon,
contemplated the slow sinking, the inevitable collapse and submerging
of one of their companions, the wreck of a career, the ruin of an
individual; an honest man, strong, fearless, upright, struck down by a
colossal power, perverted by an evil influence, go reeling to his ruin.

"I see his finish," repeated Annixter. "Exit Dyke, and score another
tally for S. Behrman, Shelgrim and Co."

He moved away impatiently, loosening the tie-rope with which the
buckskin was fastened. He swung himself up.

"God for us all," he declared as he rode away, "and the devil take the
hindmost. Good-bye, I'm going home. I still have one a little longer."

He galloped away along the Lower Road, in the direction of Quien Sabe,
emerging from the grove of cypress and eucalyptus about the ranch house,
and coming out upon the bar