angement, and that the following day would bring a renewal of
his thirst, with all its merciless violence.

But lo! on the sixth morning, the appetite was weaker than ever. His
craving was so moderate that, after a deep draught of mountain spring
water, he was hardly conscious of any longing for liquor. He seemed to
be losing his memory of it.

"I don't understand it," he mused, keeping the astonishing truth to
himself; "It's less than a week ago that I was one of the heaviest
drinkers in New Constantinople, and if anyone had told me of this, I
would have been sure he'd lost his senses, which the same may be
what's the matter with me."

But there was no awakening of his torment during the day, and when he
lay down at night, he was disturbed by strange musings.

"If we had a doctor in the place, I would ask him to tell me what it
means. The queerest thing 'bout the whole bus'ness is that I feel
three thousand per cent. better. I wonder if it can be on 'count of my
not swallerin' any of Ortigies' pison which the same he calls Mountain
Dew. I guess it must be that."

But that night he was restless, and gradually his thoughts turned into
a new channel. A momentous problem presented itself for solution.

"If I've improved so much after goin' six days without drinkin', won't
I feel a blamed sight better, if I try it for six weeks--six
months--six years--_forever_."

And as an extraordinary, a marvelous resolution simmered and finally
crystallized, he chortled.

"What'll the boys say? What'll the parson think? What'll I think? What
would that good old mother of mine think, if she was alive? But she
died afore she knowed what a good for nothin' man her boy turned out
to be. God rest her soul!" he added softly, "she must have prayed over
me a good many hundred times; if she's kept track of me all these
years, this is an answer to her prayers."

Budge Isham was the partner of Wade, and shared his cabin with him. He
slept across the room, and noticed how his friend tossed and muttered
in his sleep.

"Great Gee!" he exclaimed, "but Wade's got it pretty bad; I wonder if
it's the jim jams that is getting hold of him; I'll sleep with one eye
open, for he will need looking after. What a blessed thing it is that
he has only one more day. Then he can celebrate and be happy. I have
no doubt that by the end of another week, he will have brought things
up to their old average."

And with this conclusion, the man who a few year