"Will Henderson's a d.a.m.ned traitor," he finally burst out.

Peter nodded.

"We're all that," he said gently: "if it's only to ourselves."

"Oh, I don't want your moralizing," the other cried roughly. "Listen, this is the low, mean story of it. You'll have little enough moralizing to do when you've heard it."

Then he told Peter of their meeting the day before, and of the friendly honesty of his purpose in the shooting match. How Will had accepted, shot, and lost. This part he told with a grim setting of his teeth, and it was not until he came to the story of the man's treachery that his manner became intemperate. Then he spoke with all the color of a strongly pa.s.sionate temperament, when the heart is stirred beyond all reason. And the giant listened to it, silent and attentive. What thoughts the story inspired in the listener it would have been impossible to say. His face was calm. There was no sign of any enthralled attention. There was no light in his eyes beyond the kindliness that ever seemed to shine there. And at its conclusion Jim's underlying feeling, that almost subconscious thought which hitherto had found expression only in bitter feeling and the uncertain activities of his mind, broke out into raving.

"It's a curse that's on me, Peter!" he cried. "I tell you it's a curse! I've never had a chance. Everything from the start has been broken just when its completion was almost achieved. When I look back I can see it written all along the path I've trodden, in the ruins I've left behind me. Why, why, I ask, am I chosen for such persecution? What have I done to deserve it? I've played the game.

I've worked. G.o.d knows how I've worked. And everything I've done has come to nothing, and not because I've always made mistakes, or committed foolishnesses. Every smash has been brought about by influences that could not have been humanly foreseen. I'm cursed.

Cursed by an evil fate it is beyond my power to fight. G.o.d? It almost makes one question. Is there a G.o.d? A good G.o.d who permits such a fate to pursue a man? Is there an all-powerful G.o.d, ruling and guiding every human action? Is there? Is there a G.o.d, a merciful, loving G.o.d watching over us, such as kiddies are taught to believe in? Is there?"

"Yes."

Peter's answer so readily, so firmly spoken was arresting.

"Yes, Jim. There's a G.o.d," he went on, without any display. "There's a great big G.o.d--just such a G.o.d as you and I have knelt to when we were bits of kiddies. Maybe He's so big that our poor, weak brains can't understand Him. But He's there, right up above us, and for every poor mean atom we call 'man' He's set out a trail to walk on. It's called the One-way Trail. And the One-way Trail is just the trail of Life.

It's chock full of pitfalls and stumbling-blocks, that make us cuss like mad. But it's good for us to walk over it. There are no turnings or by-paths, and no turning back. And, maybe, when we get to the end something will have been achieved in His scheme of things that our silly brains can't grasp. Yes, there is a G.o.d, Jim, and you're just hitting the trail He's set for you."

But Jim was in no reasonable mood.

"Then where's the cursed justice----" he began heatedly. But broke off as the other shrugged his great shoulders.

He waited for Peter to speak. He waited, stirred to a mad contentiousness, to tear his friend's arguments to ribbons, and fling their broken remains back in his face. But no arguments were forthcoming. Peter understood his temper, and saw the uselessness of argument. Besides, he could smell the reek of whiskey.

He thought swiftly with all the wisdom of a great understanding and experience. And finally his manner changed utterly. He suddenly became cordially sympathetic with the other's angry mood. He even agreed with him.

"Maybe you're right, though, Jim," he said. "Things have been mighty hard for you. You've had a heap of trouble. I can't say I wonder at you taking it bad, and thinking things. But--but what are you going to do now? Buck the game afresh?"

Jim did not pause to think. He jumped speedily at the bait held out to him so subtly.

"Yes," he cried, with a bitter laugh. "But it'll be a different game.

A game most folks out here sure know how to play. We're most of us life's derelicts. I'll buck it, Peter, and set the devil dancing."

The other nodded.

"I know. I know. He's always ready to dance if we pay for the tune."

But Jim was lost in his own wild thoughts.

"Yes, and he's good company, too, Peter," he cried. "Devilish good."

He laughed at his own humor. "The harder you play the harder and more merrily he'll dance. We've got one life. The trail's marked out for us. And, by gum, we'll live while we can. Why should we sweat and toil, and have it squeezed out of us whenever--they think fit? I'll spend every dollar I make. I'll have all that life can give me. I'll pick the fruit within my reach. I'll do as the devil, or my stomach, guides me. I'll have my time----"

"And then?"

Jim sat down. He was smiling, but the smile was unreal.

"Then? Why, I'll go right down and out, and they can kick my carcase out to the town 'dumps.'"

Peter nodded again.

"Let's begin now," he said, with staggering abruptness. And he pointed at the bottle in Jim's pocket.

"Eh?" the other was startled.

"Let's begin now," Peter said, with his calm smile. "You're good company, Jim. Where you go, I'll travel, too--if it's to h.e.l.l."

The smile had vanished from Jim's eyes. For a moment he wondered stupidly, and during that moment, as Peter's hand was outstretched for the bottle, he pa.s.sed it across to him.

The other took it, and looked at the label. It was a well-known brand of rye whiskey. And as he looked he seemed to gather warmth and enthusiasm. It was as though the sight of the whiskey were irresistible to him.

"Rye," he cried. "The juice for oiling the devil's joints." And his lips seemed to smack over the words.

Jim was watching. He didn't understand. Peter's offer to go with him to h.e.l.l was staggering, and---- But the other went on in his own mildly enthusiastic way.

"We'll start right here. I'll get two gla.s.ses. We'll drink this up, and then we'll get some more at the saloon, and--we'll paint the town red." He rose and fetched two gla.s.ses from a cupboard and set them on the table. Then he took his sheath knife from his belt, and, with a skilful tap, knocked the neck off the bottle.

"No water," he said. "The stuff'll act quicker. We want it to get right up into our heads quick. We want the mad whirl of the devil's dance; we----"

"But why should you----!"

"Tut, man! Your gait's good enough for me. There's room for more fools than one in h.e.l.l. Here! Here's your medicine."

He rose and pa.s.sed a gla.s.s across to Jim, while the other he held aloft.

"Here, boy," he cried, smiling down into Jim's face "Here, I'll give you a toast." The stormy light in the ranchman's eyes had died out, and in them there lurked a question that had something like fear in it. But his gla.s.s was not raised, and Peter urged him. "A toast, lad huyk your gla.s.s right up, and we'll drink it standing."

Jim rose obediently but slowly to his feet, and his gla.s.s was lifted half-heartedly. There was no responsive enthusiasm in him now; it had gone utterly. Peter's voice suddenly filled the room with a mocking laugh, and his toast rang out in tones of sarcasm the more biting for their very mildness.

"The devil's abroad. Here's to the devil, because there's no G.o.d and the devil reigns. Nothing we see in the world is the work of anybody but the devil. The soil that yields us the good grain, the gra.s.s that feeds our stock, the warm, beneficent sun that ripens all the world, the beautiful flowers, the magnificent forests, the great hills, the seas, the rivers, the rain; everything in life. All the beautiful world, that thrills with a perfect life, that rolls its way through aeons of time held in s.p.a.ce by a power that nothing can shake. All the myriads of worlds and universes we see shining in the limitless billions of miles of s.p.a.ce at night, everything, everything. It is the arch-fiend's work, for there is no G.o.d. Here's to the mad, red, dancing devil, to whom we go!"

Jim's gla.s.s crashed to the floor. He seized the bottle of whiskey and served that in the same way.

"Stop it, you mad fool!" he cried in horror. And Peter slowly put his whiskey down untasted.

Then the dark, horror-stricken eyes looked into the smiling blue ones, and in a flash to Jim's troubled mind came inspiration. There was a long, long pause, during which eye met eye unflinchingly. Then Jim reached out a hand.

"Thanks, Peter," he said.

Peter shook his grizzled head as he gripped the outstretched hand.

"I'm glad," he said with a quaint smile, "real glad you came along--and stopped me drinking that toast. Going?"

Jim nodded. He, too, was smiling now, as he moved to the door.

"Well, I suppose you must," Peter went on. "I've got work, too." He pointed at his pile of dirt on the table. "You see, there's gold in all that muck, and--I've got to find it."