"And yet--" mused the Colonel, "--well, here's to our mothers! And may
we ever be dutiful sons! After all, my friend, no man can escape his
duty; and if duty should call us to endure a certain martyrdom we have
the example of Socrates to sustain us. If report is true he had a
scolding wife--the name of Xanthippe has become a proverb--and yet what
more noble than Socrates' rebuke to his son when he behaved undutifully
towards his mother? Where else in all literature will you find a more
exalted statement of the duty we all owe our parents than in Socrates'
dialogue with Lamprocles, his son, as recorded in the Memorabilia of
Xenophon? And if, living with Xanthippe and listening to her railings,
he could yet attain to such heights of philosophy is it not possible
that men like you and me might come, through his philosophy, to endure
it? It is that which I am pondering while I am alone here in the desert;
but my spirit is weak and that accursed camp robber made off with my
volume of Plato."

"Well, personally," stated Wiley, his mind on the Widow, "I think I
agree more with Plato. Let 'em keep in their place and not crush into
business with their talk and their double-barreled shotguns."

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the Colonel, drawing himself up gravely,
"but did you happen to come through Keno?"

"Never mind;" grumbled Wiley, "you might be the Sheriff. Tell me more
about this married man, Socrates."

CHAPTER XXXI

THE BROKEN TRUST

To seek always for Truth and Justice and the common good of mankind has
seldom had its earthly reward but, twenty-three hundred and fifteen
years after he drank the cup of hemlock, the soul of Socrates received
its oration. Not that the Colonel was hipped upon the subject of the
ancients, for he talked mining and showed some copper claims as well;
but a similar tragedy in his own domestic life had evoked a profound
admiration for Socrates. And if Wiley understood what lay behind his
words he gave no hint to the Colonel. Always, morning, noon and night,
he listened respectfully, his lips curling briefly at some thought; and
at the end of a week the Colonel was as devoted to him as he had been
formerly to his father.

Yet when, as sometimes happened, the Colonel tried to draw him out, he
shook his head stubbornly and was dumb. The problem that he had could
not be solved by talk; it called for years to recover and forget; and if
the Colonel once knew that his own daughter was