ke a pore
feller in over night?"

"Sure thing, I can," responded Hardy gayly. "Where've you been all the
time?"

And Creede chanted:

"Down to Bender,
On a bender,
Oh, I'm a spender,
You bet yer life!

"And I'm broke, too," he added, _sotto voce_, dropping off his horse
and sinking into a chair.

"Well, you don't need to let that worry you," said Hardy. "I've got
plenty. Here!" He went down into his pocket and tossed a gold piece to
him, but Creede dodged it listlessly.

"Nope," he said, "money's nothin' to me."

"What's the matter?" asked Hardy anxiously. "Are you sick?"

"Yes," answered Creede, nodding his head wearily, "sick and tired of
it all." He paused and regarded his partner solemnly. "I'm a miserable
failure, Rufe," he said. "I ain't _got_ nothin' and I ain't _worth_
nothin'. I never _done_ nothin'--and I ain't got a friend in the
world."

He stopped and gazed at the barren land despondently, waiting to see
if his partner would offer any protests.

"Rufe," he said, at last, his voice tremulous with reproach, "if you'd
only helped me out a little on that letter--if you'd only told me a
few things--well, she might have let me down easy, and I could've took
it. As it was, she soaked me."

Then it was that Hardy realized the burden under which his partner was
laboring, the grief that clutched at his heart, the fire that burned
in his brain, and he could have wept, now that it was too late.

"Jeff," he said honestly, "it don't do any good now, but I'm sorry.
I'm more than sorry--I'm ashamed. But _that_ don't do you any good
either, does it?"

He stepped over and laid his hand affectionately upon his partner's
shoulder, but Creede hunched it off impatiently.

"No," he said, slowly and deliberately, "not a dam' bit." There was no
bitterness in his words, only an acknowledgment of the truth. "They
was only one thing for me to do after I received that letter," he
continued, "and I done it. I went on a hell-roarin' drunk. That's
right. I filled up on that forty-rod whiskey until I was crazy drunk,
an' then I picked out the biggest man in town and fought him to a
whisper."

He sighed and glanced at his swollen knuckles, which still showed the
marks of combat.

"That feller was a jim-dandy scrapper," he said, smiling magnanimously,
"but I downed 'im, all right. I couldn't quite lick the whole tow