he to do? He
could stick out the night somehow--he _must_ stick it out. If he asked
for a relief it was the sack for the man upstairs--it was throwing
McGrew cold. It wouldn't take them long to find out what was the
matter with McGrew! And surely McGrew would be straight again by
morning--he wasn't any better now, worse if anything, but by morning
surely the worst of the drink would be out of him. McGrew had been
pretty bad all day--as bad as the Kid had ever seen a man. He wondered
a little numbly about it. He had thought once that McGrew might have
had some more drink hidden, and he had searched for it during the
forenoon while McGrew watched him from the bunk; but he had found
nothing. It was strange, too, the way McGrew was acting, strange that
it took so long for the man to get it out of his system, it seemed to
the Kid; but the Kid had not found those last two bottles, neither was
the Kid up in therapeutics, nor was he the diagnostician that Doctor
McTurk was.

"By morning," said the Kid, with the moan, "if he can't stand a trick
I'll _have_ to wire. I'm afraid to-night 'll be my limit."

It was still and quiet--not even a breeze to whisper through the cut,
or stir the pine-clad slope into rustling murmurs. Almost heavily the
silence lay over the little station buried deep in the heart of the
mighty range. Only the sounder spoke and chattered--at
intervals--spasmodically.

An hour passed, an hour and a half, and the Kid scarcely moved--then he
roused himself. It was pretty near time for the Circus Special to be
going through to make its meeting point with the Limited at L'Aramie,
and he looked at his lights. He could see them, up and down, switch
and semaphore, from the bay window of the station where he sat. It was
just a glance to assure himself that all was right. He saw the lights
through red and black flashes before his eyes, saw that the main line
was open as it should be--and dropped his swooning, throbbing head back
on his arms once more.

And then suddenly he sat erect. From overhead came the dull, ominous
thud of a heavy fall. He rose from his chair--and caught at the table,
as the giddiness surged over him and his head swam around. For an
instant he hung there swaying, then made his way weakly for the stairs
and started up.

There was a light above--he had kept a lamp burning there--but for a
moment after he reached the top nothing but those ghastly red and black
flashes met his