"I can't!"

"I thought not. It must be rather hard for him, who has always considered himself a tragedian and a Shakespeare scholar, to burlesque the parts he has studied and loved."

"Bah! That's nonsense! Why, the man's a pitiful old drunkard! You give him credit for too fine feelings."

"And you do not seem to give him credit for any feelings. Even a drunkard may have fine feelings at times."

"Perhaps so."

"Perhaps so! I know it. It is drink that degrades and lowers the man.

When he is sober, he may be kind, gentle and lovable."

"Well, I haven't much patience with a man who will keep himself filled with whisky."

Frank opened his lips to say something, but quickly changed his mind, knowing he must cut Hodge deeply. He longed, however, to say that the ones most p.r.o.ne to err and fall in this life are often the harshest judges of others who go astray.

"I ruther pity the pore critter," said Ephraim; "but I don't b'lieve he'll ever make ennyboddy larf in the world. He looks too much like a funeral."

"That is the very thing that should make them laugh, when he has his make-up on. I have seen the burlesque tragedian overdone on the stage, so that he was nauseating; but I believe Burns can give the character just the right touch."

"Well, if you firmly believe that, it's no use to talk to you, for you'll never change your mind till you have to," broke out Hodge. "I have seen a sample of that in the way you deal with your enemies. Now, there was Leslie Lawrence----"

"Let him rest in peace," said Frank. "He is gone forever."

"An' it's a dinged good riddance!" said Gallup. "The only thing I'm sorry fer is that the critter escaped lynchin'!"

"Yes, he should have been lynched!" flashed Bart. "At the Twin Star Ranch now the poor girl he deserted is lying on a bed of pain, shot down by his dastardly hand."

"He did not intend the bullet for her," said Frank, quickly.

"No; but he intended it for you! It was a great case of luck that he didn't finish you. If you had pushed the villain to the wall before that, instead of dealing with him as if he had the least instinct of a gentleman in his worthless body, you would have saved the girl from so much suffering."

"She loves him still," said Frank. "Her last words to me were a message to him, for she does not know he is dead beneath the quicksands of Big Sandy."

"The quicksands saved him from the gallows."

"An' they took another ungrateful rascal along with him, b'gee!" said Ephraim, with satisfaction.

"Yes," nodded Frank; "I think there is no doubt but Lloyd Fowler perished with Lawrence, for I fancied I recognized Fowler in the fellow who accompanied Lawrence that fatal night."

"And Fowler was a drinking man, so I should think he would be a warning to you," said Hodge. "I shouldn't think you'd care to take another sot into the company."

"You must know that there is as little resemblance between Fowler and Burns as there is between night and day."

"Perhaps so, but Burns can drink more whisky than Fowler ever could."

"And he is ashamed of himself for it. I have talked with him about it, and I know."

"Oh, he made you believe so. He is slick."

"He was not trying to deceive me."

"So you think. He knows where his money comes from to buy whisky. It's more than even chance that, when you are ready to start on the road, he will give you the slip."

"He asked me to release him to-day."

"And you refused?"

"I did. I urged him to stay with us."

Hodge got up.

"That settles it!" he exclaimed. "Now I know theatricals have wrought your downfall! Your glory is fast departing."

"Then let it depart!" laughed Frank. "You have been forced to confess yourself mistaken on other occasions; you may on this."

"Good-night," said Hodge, and he went out.

Ephraim grinned.

"Some fellows would say it'd be a gol-danged sensible thing fer yeou to git rid of that feller," he said, nodding toward the door. "He's gittin'

to be the greatest croaker I ever knew."

"Hodge is getting worse," admitted Frank, gravely. "I think the unfortunate end of his college course has had much to do with it. He broods over that a great deal, and it is making him sour and unpleasant.

I can imagine about how he feels."

"If he ever larfed he'd be more agreeable. Danged if I like a feller that alwus looks so sollum an' ugly. Sometimes he looks as ef he could snap a spike off at one bite an' not harf try."

"Wait," said Frank. "If I am successful with this play, I hope to go back to Yale in the fall and take Hodge with me. I think he is getting an idea into his head that his life career has been ruined at the very start, and that is making him bitter. I'll take him back, run him into athletics, get his mind off such unpleasant thoughts, and make a new man of him."

"Waal, I hope ye do," said Gallup, rising and preparing to go. "There's jest one thing abaout Hodge that makes me keer a rap fer him."

"What's that?"

"It's ther way he sticks to yeou. Be gosh! I be'lieve he'd wade through a red-hot furnace to reach yeou an' fight for yeou, if yeou was in danger!"

"I haven't a doubt but he'd make the attempt," nodded Frank.

"An' he kin fight," the Vermonter went on. "Aout at Ace High, when we was up against all them ruffians, he fought like a dozen tigers all rolled inter one. That's ernnther thing that makes me think a little somethin' of him."

"Yes," agreed Merry, "Bart is a good fighter. The only trouble with him is that he is too ready to fight. There are times when one should avoid a fight, if possible; but Hodge never recognizes any of those times. I never knew him to try to avoid a fight."

"Waal," drawled Ephraim, with a yawn, "I'm goin' to bed. Good-night, Frank."

"Good-night."

Merry closed the door after Gallup and carefully locked and bolted it.

Then he sat down, took a letter from his pocket, and read it through from beginning to end. When he had finished, he pressed the missive to his lips, murmuring: