o Bud. He
got up, shut his eyes very tight and then opened them wide to clear his
vision, shook himself into his clothes and went over to the stove.
Cash had not left the coffeepot on the stove but had, with malicious
intent--or so Bud believed--put it away on the shelf so that what coffee
remained was stone cold. Bud muttered and threw out the coffee, grounds
and all--a bit of bachelor extravagance which only anger could drive him
to--and made fresh coffee, and made it strong. He did not want it. He
drank it for the work of physical regeneration it would do for him.

He lay down afterwards, and this time he dropped into a more nearly
normal sleep, which lasted until Cash returned at dusk After that he lay
with his face hidden, awake and thinking. Thinking, for the most part,
of how dull and purposeless life was, and wondering why the world
was made, or the people in it--since nobody was happy, and few even
pretended to be. Did God really make the world, and man, just to play
with--for a pastime? Then why bother about feeling ashamed for anything
one did that was contrary to God's laws?

Why be puffed up with pride for keeping one or two of them
unbroken--like Cash, for instance. Just because Cash never drank or
played cards, what right had he to charge the whole atmosphere of the
cabin with his contempt and his disapproval of Bud, who chose to do
both?

On the other hand, why did he choose a spree as a relief from his
particular bunch of ghosts? Trading one misery for another was all
you could call it. Doing exactly the things that Marie's mother had
predicted he would do, committing the very sins that Marie was always
a little afraid he would commit--there must be some sort of twisted
revenge in that, he thought, but for the life of him he could not quite
see any real, permanent satisfaction in it--especially since Marie and
her mother would never get to hear of it.

For that matter, he was not so sure that they would not get to hear.
He remembered meeting, just on the first edge of his spree, one Joe De
Barr, a cigar salesman whom he had known in San Jose. Joe knew Marie--in
fact, Joe had paid her a little attention before Bud came into her life.
Joe had been in Alpine between trains, taking orders for goods from the
two saloons and the hotel. He had seen Bud drinking. Bud knew perfectly
well how much Joe had seen him drinking, and he knew perfectly well
that Joe was surprised to the point of amazement--and, Bud