up against at times, they
never could have kept their feet at all."

"No, that wasn't what I meant, Steve. I figured he was kind of a
regular chap--the hero guy that's too hot proud to bat an eye, you
know, even when he's--well, I just can't get it straight in words, but
this is what I'm driving at. The first night after you had gone he was
settin' right here where I'm settin' now, looking quiet into the fire.
I didn't ask him what was on his mind, not because I've learned not to
go trackin' across other men's mental preserves, but simply because I
didn't even have to guess more than once. He's a nice lookin' boy,
ain't he? Sort of fine cut and tight built, and clean and decent
looking. I'd been thinkin' of that, too; thinkin' he didn't look like
the others I've seen drop off so sudden it left me gasping. Nor like
them who went over so screamin' mad it left my palms wet and clammy
from hangin' on to myself while they were going. He looked different,
settin' here and staring into the fire, and hell burning inside him,
and saying nothing. I sort of got to figurin' over him about
then--sort of begun to wonder, even before I hunted up a deck of cards.

"Oh, you can smile if you want to, but you'll have to admit, just the
same, that it's helped you stay sane once or twice yourself, figurin'
whether or not I had an ace in the hole. Lonesomeness like what we've
both seen ain't so very different from what he was fightin' at that
very moment--not if the thing you're lonesome for and the thing you're
thirsty for are things you know you can't have.

"I invited him to set in for a bit of intellectual pastime; I had to
invite him twice, but he smiled then and agreed just as though he was
glad to. And then, careless and off-hand, I asked him would he care to
name the stakes.

"He waited quite a while before he answered me. You know how quiet it
can be here in the timber, Steve, when it starts out to be quiet.
Well, I could just feel the silence right here in this room. And then
he laughed! It wasn't hardly any sound at all he made, and yet it
might have been a blast, it hit me that sudden. I don't like that kind
of laughter.

"'Stakes?' he says after me, just as precise as could be. 'Why,
surely! I should be happy to back my play, but I'm afraid that my
present supply of cash would hardly stand a very heavy drain.'

"He didn't have to explain even that much. Right along I'd been
certain enough that he didn't h