ing and--and sort of
damnable," he concluded lamely.

"Sort of damnable!" ejaculated Hill wonderingly.

"Yes, damnable."

I experienced inspiration. "You've got a concrete instance back of
that," I ventured.

Hardy removed his gaze from the ceiling. "Er--" he stammered. "Why,
yes--yes. That's true."

"You'd better tell it," suggested Hill; "otherwise your argument is not
very conclusive."

Hardy fumbled with the spoon of his empty coffee-cup. It was a curious
gesture on the part of a man whose franknesses were as clean-cut as his
silences. "Well--" he began. "I don't know. Perhaps. I did know a man,
though, who saved another man's life when he didn't want to, when there
was every excuse for him not to, when he had it all reasoned out that
it was wrong, the very wrongest possible thing to do; and he saved him
because he couldn't help it, saved him at the risk of his own life,
too."

"He did!" murmured Hill incredulously.

"Go on!" I urged. I was aware that we were on the edge of a revelation.

Hardy looked down at the spoon in his hand, then up and into my eyes.

"It's such a queer place to tell it"--he smiled deprecatingly--"here,
in this restaurant. It ought to be about a camp-fire, or something
like that. Here it seems out of place, like the smell of bacon or
sweating mules. Do you know Los Pinos? Well, you wouldn't. It was
just a few shacks and a Mexican gambling-house when I saw it. Maybe
it isn't there any more, at all. You know--those places! People build
them and then go away, and in a year there isn't a thing, just desert
again and shifting sand and maybe the little original old ranch by the
one spring." He swept the table-cloth with his hand, as if sweeping
something into oblivion, and his eyes sought again the spoon. "It's
queer, that business. Men and women go out to lonely places and build
houses, and for a while everything goes on in miniature, just as it does
here--daily bread and hating and laughing--and then something happens,
the gold gives out or the fields won't pay, and in no time nature is
back again. It's a big fight. You lose track of it in crowded places."
He raised his head and settled his arms comfortably on the table.

"I wasn't there for any particular purpose. I was on a holiday. I'd been
on a big job up in Colorado and was rather done up, and, as there were
some prospects in New Mexico I wanted to see, I hit south, drifting
through Santa Fe and Silver City, until I found mysel