bellowing, groaning, struggling, wounded, dying, and dead--a great
mass of heavy bodies, mixed indiscriminately--bruised, broken,
segmented, blood-covered, horrible, lay the observer's trust, the
wealth of his employer, his own hope of regeneration, worse now than
worthless carrion. And the cause of it all, the sole excuse for
this delinquency, lay back there upon a greasy table in the
shanty--a short scrawling tale scribbled upon a handful of scrap
paper!

III

"Yes, I'm back, Bob."

The tall, thin Calmar Bye leaned back in his chair and looked
listlessly about the familiar _cafe_, without a suggestion of emotion.
It seemed to him hardly credible that he had been away from it all for
a year and more. Nothing was changed. Across the room the same mirrors
repeated the reflections he had observed so many times before. Nearby
were the same booths and from within them came the same laughter and
chatter and suppressed song. Opposite the tiny table the same man with
the broad, good-natured face was making critical, smiling observation,
as of yore. As ever, the look recalled the visionary to the present.

"Back for good, Bob," he repeated slowly.

The speaker's attitude was far from being that of a conquering hero
returned; the sympathies of the easy-going Robert, ever responsive,
were roused.

"What's the matter, old man?" he queried tentatively. "Weren't you a
success as a broncho-buster?"

"A success!" Calmar Bye stroked a long, thin face with a long, thin
hand. "A success!" he repeated. "I couldn't have been a worse
failure, Bob." He paused a moment, smoothing the table-cloth absently
with his finger tips.

"Success!" once more, bitterly. "I'm not even a mediocre at anything
unless it is at what I'm doing now, dangling and helping spend the
money some one else has worked all day to earn." He looked his
astonished friend fair in the eyes.

"You don't know what an idiot, a worse than idiot, I've made of
myself," and he began the story of the past year.

Monotonously, unemotionally he told the tale, omitting nothing, adding
nothing; while about him the sounds of the restaurant, the tinkling of
glassware, the ring of silver, the familiar muffled pop of extracted
corks, played a soft accompaniment. Occasionally Bob would make a
comment or ask explanation of something to him entirely new; but that
was all until near the end,--where the delinquent herder, coming
swiftly to the brow of the hill, looked down upo