y and the wimen and children passengers hez their rights."
He paused a moment, and added, "And so I reckon hez Mrs. Byers, and I
ain't goin' to send you home to her outer my house blind drunk. It's
mighty rough on you and me, I know, but there's a lot o' roughness in
this world ez hez to be got over, and life, ez far ez I kin see, ain't
all a clearin'."

Perhaps it was his good-humored yet firm determination, perhaps it was
his resigned philosophy, but something in the speaker's manner affected
Mr. Byers's alcoholic susceptibility, and hastened his descent from the
passionate heights of intoxication to the maudlin stage whither he
was drifting. The fire of his red eyes became filmed and dim, an equal
moisture gathered in his throat as he pressed Abner's hand with drunken
fervor. "Thash so! your thinking o' me an' Mish Byersh is like troo
fr'en'," he said thickly. "I wosh only goin' to shay that wotever Mish
Byersh wosh--even if she wosh wife o' yours--she wosh--noble woman! Such
a woman," continued Mr. Byers, dreamily regarding space, "can't have too
many husbands."

"You jest sit back here a minit, and have a quiet smoke till I come
back," said Abner, handing him his tobacco plug. "I've got to give the
butcher his order--but I won't be a minit." He secured the decanter as
he spoke, and evading an apparent disposition of his companion to fall
upon his neck, made his way with long strides to the hotel, as Mr.
Byers, sinking back against the trees, began certain futile efforts to
light his unfilled pipe.

Whether Abner's attendance on the butcher was merely an excuse to
withdraw with the decanter, I cannot say. He, however, dispatched his
business quickly, and returned to the tree. But to his surprise Mr.
Byers was no longer there. He explored the adjacent woodland with
non-success, and no reply to his shouting. Annoyed but not alarmed, as
it seemed probable that the missing man had fallen in a drunken sleep in
some hidden shadows, he returned to the house, when it occurred to him
that Byers might have sought the bar-room for some liquor. But he was
still more surprised when the barkeeper volunteered the information
that he had seen Mr. Byers hurriedly pass down the side veranda into the
highroad. An hour later this was corroborated by an arriving teamster,
who had passed a man answering to the description of Byers, "mor' 'n
half full," staggeringly but hurriedly walking along the road "two
miles back." There seemed to