ed where the floor
was sunken. A dank warmth and the smell of wet wood heating to the
blazing point pervaded the room and mingled with the coarse aroma of
cheap, warmed-over coffee.

"Sandy!"

"Hunh?"

"Did anybody get married last night?" The leash of forgetfulness was
snapping, strand by strand. Troubled remembrance peered out from behind
the philosophic calm in Ford's eyes.

"Unh-hunh." Sandy turned a leaf and at the same time flicked the ashes
from his cigarette with a mechanical finger movement. "You did." He
looked briefly up from the page. "That's why you licked the preacher,"
he assisted, and went back to his reading.

A subdued rumble of mid-autumn thunder jarred sullenly overhead. Ford
ceased caressing the purple half-moon which inclosed his left eye and
began moodily straightening his tie.

"Now what'n hell did I do that for?" he inquired complainingly.

"Search _me_," mumbled Sandy over his book. He read half a page
farther. "Do what for?" he asked, with belated attention.

Ford swore and went over and lifted the coffeepot from the stove, shook
it, looked in, and made a grimace of disgust as the steam smote him in
the face. "Paugh!" He set down the pot and turned upon Sandy.

"Get your nose out of that book a minute and talk!" he commanded in a
tone beseeching for all its surly growl. "You say I got married. I kinda
recollect something of the kind. What I want to know is who's the lady?
And what did I do it for?" He sat down, leaned his bruised head upon his
palms, and spat morosely into the stove-hearth. "Lordy me," he grumbled.
"I don't know any lady well enough to marry her--and I sure can't think
of any female lady that would marry me--not even by proxy!"

Sandy closed the book upon a forefinger and regarded Ford with that
blend of pity, amusement, and tolerance which is so absolutely
unbearable to one who has behaved foolishly and knows it. Ford would
not have borne the look if he had seen it; but he was caressing a
bruise on the point of his jaw and staring dejectedly into the meager
blaze which rimmed the lower edge of the stove's front door, and so
remained unconscious of his companion's impertinence.

"Who was the lady, Sandy?" he begged dispiritedly, after a silence.

"Search _me_" Sandy replied again succinctly. "Some stranger that blew
in here with a license and the preacher and said you was her fee-ancy."
(Sandy read romances, mostly, and permitted his vocabulary to profit
thereby