walked away, with that same circumspect exactness in his stride
which marks the drunken man as surely as does a stagger.

He remembered what it was that had brought him to town--
which is more than most men in his condition would have done. He
went to the pest office and inquired for mail, got what proved to
be the assayer's report, and went on. He bought half a dozen
bananas which did not remind him of that night when he had waited
on the Oakland pier for the mysterious Foster, though they might
have recalled the incident vividly to mind had he been sober. He
had been wooing forgetfulness, and for the time being he had won.

Walking up the steep, winding trail that led to Nelson Flat
cleared a little his fogged brain. He began to remember what it
was that he had been fighting to forget. Marie's face floated
sometimes before him, but the vision was misty and remote, like
distant woodland seen through the gray film of a storm. The
thought of her filled him with a vague discomfort now when his
emotions were dulled by the terrific strain he had wilfully put
upon brain and body. Resentment crept into the foreground again.
Marie had made him suffer. Marie was to blame for this beastly
fit of intoxication. He did not love Marie--he hated her. He
did not want to see her, he did not want to think of her. She had
done nothing for him but bring him trouble. Marie, forsooth!
(Only, Bud put it in a slightly different way.)

Halfway to the flat, he met Cash walking down the slope where
the trail seemed tunneled through deep green, so thick stood the
young spruce. Cash was swinging his arms in that free stride of
the man who has learned how to walk with the least effort. He did