"There's a good poker game going, back there," vouchsafed the
bartender, turning his thumb toward the rear, where half a dozen
men were gathered in a close group around a table. "There's some
real money in sight, to-night."

"All right, let's go see." Bud turned that way, Frank following
like a pet dog at his heels.

At dawn the next morning, Bud got up stiffly from the chair
where he had spent the night. His eyeballs showed a network of
tiny red veins, swollen with the surge of alcohol in his blood
and with the strain of staring all night at the cards. Beneath
his eyes were puffy ridges. His cheekbones flamed with the whisky
flush. He cashed in a double-handful of chips, stuffed the money
he had won into his coat pocket, walked, with that stiff
precision of gait by which a drunken man strives to hide his
drunkenness, to the bar and had another drink. Frank was at his
elbow. Frank was staggering, garrulous, laughing a great deal
over very small jokes.

"I'm going to bed," said Bud, his tongue forming the words with
a slow carefulness.

"Come over to my shack, Bud--rotten hotel. My bed's clean,
anyway." Frank laughed and plucked him by the sleeve.

"All right," Bud consented gravely. "We'll take a bottle
along."