and glasses. "Help yourself, but I'll tell you now
it ain't any o' the simon-pure moonshine we used to get in the old red
hills. And you say you are direct from there? My Lord! It seems funny to
see a man in this God-forsaken place fresh from them old mountains.
Since I clean cut myself off--burnt my bridges, as the feller said, I
kind o' realize what I lost. Say, Hank, you didn't give me away, did
you?"

Bradley drank a half-tumbler of the whiskey, and took a sip of water and
cleared his throat. "No, I kept mum, Dick. I said I would, and I did. It
wasn't anything to me, nohow. I ain't no gossiper. That was your game,
and I saw no reason to spoil it. Shucks! you needn't worry; you are
deader back there than a door-nail. Where is that old pal of yours?"

"Dead." Wrinkle raised his hand warningly. "Don't talk about him. He was
a good chap, and stuck to me like a friend and a brother."

"Gee! then you must be lonely, away out here--"

"Don't talk about it. Cut that out, Hank. I'm blue enough as it is."
Wrinkle moved the bottle and glasses to a crude table near the door and
took a chair. Bradley drew up another and sat down. The rising sun
blazed in at the open door, and flared like flame in the gilt-framed
mirror back of the bar.

"All right. Out she goes. I didn't mean to touch on a sore spot, but I
didn't know. You didn't write often."

"I was afraid my letters might be opened by somebody else. I wanted all
that to stay wiped out, Hank. I didn't care so much for Het as I did for
the old man and woman."

"I wrote you about your wife marrying again?" Bradley said. "I reckon
that ain't news?"

"Oh no." Wrinkle had inherited his nonchalant smile and care-free tone
from his father. "The damn fool was welcome to 'er. In fact, I owed him
that dose. He's the only man I ever had a grudge against, and I was
glad he got her. He thought she was exactly the thing he was looking
for; I reckon he knows what he got by this time. Marrying her was the
foolishest thing I ever was guilty of, and I think I done it to spite
him. I ought to have let 'im marry 'er an' then 'a' took 'er away from
him. I could 'a' done it as easy as falling off a log. She was plumb
daft. I reckon she cut up considerable when the news was spread that I
was done for."

"It was the talk of the county, Dick. Folks thought she'd have to be
sent to the asylum. Her uncle, Ben Warren, who was so rich, you know,
took pity on her and made her come visit him so