leaving.

"What's the matter with me, anyway?" he questioned himself impatiently.
"I'm acting like I hadn't a right to go in and take a drink when I feel
like it! If just a slight touch of matrimony acts like that with a man,
what can the real thing be like? I always heard it made a fool of a
fellow." To prove to himself that he was still untrammeled and at
liberty to follow his own desire, he stamped across the porch, threw
open the door, and entered with a certain defiance of manner.

Behind the bar, Sam was laughing with his mouth wide open so that his
gum showed shamelessly. Bill and Aleck and Big Jim were leaning heavily
upon the bar, laughing also.

"I'll bet she's a Heart-and-Hander, tryin' a new scheme to git a man.
Think uh nabbing a man when he's drunk. That's a new one," Sam brought
his lips close enough together to declare, and chewed vigorously upon
the idea,--until he glanced up and saw Ford standing by the door. He
turned abruptly, caught up a towel, and began polishing the bar with the
frenzy of industry which never imposes upon one in the slightest degree.

Bill glanced behind him and nudged Aleck into caution, and in the
silence which followed, the popping of a piece of slate-veined coal in
the stove sounded like a volley of small-caliber pistol shots.

CHAPTER III

One Way to Drown Sorrow

Ford walked up to the bar, with a smile upon his face which Sam
misunderstood and so met with a conciliatory grin and a hand extended
toward a certain round, ribbed bottle with a blue-and-silver label. Ford
waved away the bottle and leaned, not on the bar but across it, and
clutching Sam by the necktie, slapped him first upon one ear and next
upon the other, until he was forced by the tingling of his own fingers
to desist. By that time Sam's green necktie was pulled tight just under
his nose, and he had swallowed his gum--which, considering the size of
the lump, was likely to be the death of him.

Ford did not say a word. He permitted Sam to jerk loose and back into a
corner, and he watched the swift crimsoning of his ears with a keen
interest. Since Sam's face had the pasty pallor of the badly scared,
the ears appeared much redder by contrast than they really were. Next,
Ford turned his attention to the man beside him, who happened to be
Bill. For one long minute the grim spirit of war hovered just over the
two.

"Aw, forget it, Ford," Bill urged ingratiatingly at last. "You don't
want to lick an