er ties, with plaid socks--and so on. He stopped off at
Red Gap on his way up to do this outrage. His face was baked a rich red
brown; so I saw it wouldn't show up marks as legibly as when he was pale.

He said Ben wasn't a right bad fellow and he had no personal grudge
against him, except he needed to have his head beat off on account of his
inhumanity.

I told him Ben had worked up from yardmaster at Wallace to assistant
division superintendent at Tekoa, where he would probably find him; and I
wished him God-speed.

He said he rejoiced to know of Ben's promotion, because he had probably
softened some, setting round an office. He promised to let me know the
result at once. He did. It was the same old result. The fight had gone a
few more rounds, I gathered, but Ed still gave the decision against
himself in the same conscientious way. He said Ben had licked him fair.
It was uncanny the way he took these defeats. No other human being but
would of made some little excuse. He came back in another suit and a bit
blemished in the face, and said Ben seemed to be getting a fair amount
of exercise in spite of his confining office duties; but--mark his
words--that indoor work would get him in time. He'd never seen a man yet
that could set at a desk all day and keep in shape to resent fighting
talk, even from a lighter man by twenty pounds. He said he might have to
wait till Ben was general manager, or something; but his day was coming,
and it would be nothing for Ben to cheer about when it got here. He now
once more drifted out over the high horizon, only one eye being much help
to him in seeing the way.

Then Ben come down and had a wholehearted session with me. He said I
ought to have a talk with Ed and reason him out of his folly. I said Ed
would listen to a number of things, but not to reason. He said he knew
it; that the poor coot should be in some good institution right now,
where the state could look after him. He said he couldn't answer for the
consequences if Ed kept on in this mad way. He said here he was, climbing
up in his profession, and yet with this scandal in his private life that
might crop out any time and blast his career; and, by doggie, it was a
shame! He said it was hanging over him like a doom and sometimes he even
woke up in the night and wished he had made a different report about the
accident--one with a little hysterics or description in it, like this
maniac had seemed to crave.

"It ain't that I