d gambled on the same.

CHAPTER XV

Pat Bylow's Spree

At the time of the incidents at Fort Ryan, Belle was away on a visit to
Deadwood. Otherwise, Hartigan would surely have consulted her and
profited by her calmer judgment in the matter of the race. As it was,
his torturing sense of moral iniquity led him to preach a sermon in
which he poured forth all the intensity of his nature. Quietly to drop
the subject was not his way; he knew that every one was talking about
it, so nothing would do but a public denunciation of himself, and all
that followed the race track.

The text he chose was: "My wounds stink, and are corrupt, because of my
foolishness" (Psalms XXXVIII:5). Jim's thought was that once the sinner
is saved, all his sins become peculiarly and especially repugnant to
him. They acquire nothing less than a stench in his nostrils, and
henceforth are as repellent as once they were attractive, no matter what
they may be; and he enumerated drunkenness, swearing, gambling, and
horse-racing. At mention of the last a smile spread over the faces of
the congregation. He noted it at once, and said:

"Yes, I know what you are thinking. You are wondering how I came to ride
my horse in a race at Fort Ryan. Well, it was the devil laid a snare for
me, and I fell in. But this I will say: I promise you I will never do
the like again, and if each of you will stand up now and give me the
same promise about your own particular besetting sin, then I'll feel
that we have made a great gain, and I will be glad I rode that race
after all."

In this land of the horse no one was long inclined to take the matter
seriously. A nature so buoyant as his could not long be downcast, and
Hartigan's sense of sin for his part in the race was soon put behind
him. Then happened an incident that gave him a chance to score a
triumph.

In a remote part of the valley some five miles back of Cedar Mountain
was Bylow's Corner, a group of three or four houses near the road, the
log cabins of homesteaders. These men had, indeed, few pleasures in
life. Their highest notion of joy was a spree; and every month or two
they would import a keg of liquor, generally of a quality unfit for
human consumption. The word had been passed around that Pat Bylow had
got a keg of the "real stuff," and the rest of the Corner assembled on a
certain Saturday night for an orgy, which it was expected would last
about two days. Word of it reached Hartigan, too, and h