I thought reckless speculation was, it
seems, deliberate judgment to him. His
money ``in the dirt,'' as the phrase was,
Grayson got him a horse and rode the
hills and waited. He was intimate with
nobody. Occasionally he would play
poker with us and sometimes he drank
a good deal, but liquor never loosed his
tongue. At poker his face told as little
as the back of his cards, and he won more
than admiration--even from the Kentuckians,
who are artists at the game;
but the money went from a free hand,
and, after a diversion like this, he was
apt to be moody and to keep more to
himself than ever. Every fortnight or
two he would disappear, always over
Sunday. In three or four days he
would turn up again, black with brooding,
and then he was the last man to
leave the card-table or he kept away
from it altogether. Where he went nobody
knew; and he was not the man
anybody would question.

One night two of us Kentuckians
were sitting in the club, and from a
home paper I read aloud the rumored
engagement of a girl we both knew--
who was famous for beauty in the Bluegrass,