told her I
had been on a trip to hell, and the farther that experience is behind me
the stronger my conviction that I defined it right.

"When I left you that night after we came back from the river, I went
out to look for young Walker, all blazing up, in my old-time way of
grabbing at things like a bullfrog at a piece of flannel, over what you
had said about a man not always having the sense and the courage to take
hold of his chances when they presented.

"Walker had talked to me about going in with him on his sheep-ranch,
under the impression, I suppose, that I had money to invest. Well, I
hadn't any, as you know, but I got the notion that Walker might set me
up with a flock of sheep, like they do in this country, to take care of
on shares. I had recovered entirely from my disappointment in failing to
draw a claim, as I thought, knowing nothing about the mistake in
telephoning the names over.

"I used to be quick to get over things that were based on hope that
way," he smiled, turning to her for a second and scarcely noting how she
leaned forward to listen. "Just then I was all sheep. I had it planned
out ten years ahead in that twenty minutes. When a man never has had
anything to speculate in but dreams he's terribly extravagant of them,
you know. I was recklessly so.

"Well, I was going along with my head in the clouds, and I made a short
cut to go in the back way of the biggest gambling-tent, where I thought
Walker might be watching the games. Right there the machinery of my
recollection jumps a space. Something hit me, and a volcano burst before
my eyes."

"Oh, I knew it! I knew it!" she cried, poignant anguish in her wailing
voice. "I told that chief of police that; I told him that very thing!"

"Did you go to that brute?" he asked, clutching her almost roughly by
the wrist.

"William Bentley and I," she nodded. "The chief wouldn't help. He told
us that you were in no danger in Comanche."

"What else?" he asked.

"Go on with the story," said she.

"Yes. I came back to semiconsciousness with that floating sensation
which men had described to me, but which I never experienced before, and
heard voices, and felt light on my closed eyes, which I hadn't the power
to open. But the first thing that I was conscious of, even before the
voices and the light, was the smell of whisky-barrels.

"Nothing smells like a whisky-barrel. It's neither whisky nor barrel,
but whisky-barrel. Once you have smelled it you n