those English talk about the latest news from 'town,' and how they
mean to run back for the season or the hunting. But they know they
don't dare go back, and they know that everybody at the table knows
it, and that the servants behind them know it. But it's more easy that
way. There's only a few of us here, and we've got to hang together or
we'd go crazy."

"That's so," said Meakim, approvingly. "It makes it more sociable."

"It's a funny place," continued Carroll. The wine had loosened his
tongue, and it was something to him to be able to talk to one of his
own people again, and to speak from their point of view, so that the
man who had gone through St. Paul's and Harvard with him would see it
as such a man should. "It's a funny place, because, in spite of the
fact that it's a prison, you grow to like it for its freedom. You can
do things here you can't do in New York, and pretty much everything
goes there, or it used to, where I hung out. But here you're just your
own master, and there's no law and no religion and no relations nor
newspapers to poke into what you do nor how you live. You can
understand what I mean if you've ever tried living in the West. I used
to feel the same way the year I was ranching in Texas. My family sent
me out there to put me out of temptation; but I concluded I'd rather
drink myself to death on good whiskey at Del's than on the stuff we
got on the range, so I pulled my freight and came East again. But
while I was there I was a little king. I was just as good as the next
man, and he was no better than me. And though the life was rough, and
it was cold and lonely, there was something in being your own boss
that made you stick it out there longer than anything else did. It was
like this, Holcombe." Carroll half rose from his chair and marked what
he said with his finger. "Every time I took a step and my gun bumped