he Kid had gone to bed,
two men pitched a rough, weather-beaten tent on the plateau below the
station. Hard-looking specimens they were; unkempt, unshaven, each
with a mount and a pack horse. Harvey and Lansing they told McGrew
their names were, when they dropped in for a social call that night,
and they said that they were prospectors--but their geological hammers
were bottles of raw spirit that the Indians loved, and the veins of ore
they tapped were the furs that an Indian will sell for "red-eye" when
he will sell for no other thing on earth. It was against the
law--enough against the law to keep a man's mouth who was engaged in
that business pretty tightly shut--but, perhaps recognizing a kindred
spirit in McGrew, and warmed by the bottle they had hospitably brought,
before that first night was over no secret of that sort lay between
them and McGrew.

And so drink came to Angel Forks; and in a supply that was not stinted.
It was Harvey and Lansing's stock in trade--and they were well stocked.
McGrew bought it from them with cash and with provisions, and played
poker with them with a kitty for the "red-eye."

There was nothing riotous about it at first, not bad enough to
incapacitate McGrew; and it was a night or two before the Kid knew what
was going on, for McGrew was cautious. Harvey and Lansing were away in
the mountains during the daytime, and they came late to fraternize with
McGrew, around midnight, long after the Kid was asleep. Then McGrew
began to tipple steadily, and signs of drink came patently enough--too
patently to be ignored one morning when the Kid relieved McGrew and
went on for the day trick.

The Kid said nothing, no word had passed between them for two weeks;
but that evening, when McGrew in turn went on for his trick, the Kid
went upstairs and found a bottle, nearly full, hidden under McGrew's
mattress. He took it, went outside with it, smashed it against a
rock--and kept on across the plateau to the prospectors' outfit.
Harvey and Lansing, evidently just in from a day's lucrative trading,
were unsaddling and busy over their pack animals.

"Hello, Keene!" they greeted in chorus; and Lansing added: "Hang 'round
a bit an' join in; we're just goin' TO cook grub."

The Kid ignored both the salutation and the proffered hospitality.

"I came down here to tell you two fellows something," he said slowly,
and there was a grim, earnest set to his lips that was not to be
misunderstood. "It's