from foaming out of all bounds. His patient was still sitting upon the edge
of the bed where he had left him, slumped forward with his head in his
hands. He looked up stupidly, his eyes bloodshot and swollen of lid.

"'S the train come in yet?" he asked thickly. "'S you, is it, Kent?"

"The train's come, and your girl is waiting for you at the hotel. Here,
throw this into you--and for God's sake, brace up! You make me tired. Drink
her down quick--the foam's good for you. Here, you take the stuff in the
bottom, too. Got it? Take off your coat, so I can get at you. You don't
look much like getting married, and that's no josh."

Fleetwood shook his head with drunken gravity, and groaned. "I ought to be
killed. Drunk to-day!" He sagged forward again, and seemed disposed to shed
tears. "She'll never forgive me; she--"

Kent jerked him to his feet peremptorily. "Aw, look here! I'm trying
to sober you up. You've got to do your part--see? Here's some ice in a
towel--you get it on your head. Open up your shirt, so I can bathe your
chest. Don't do any good to blubber around about it. Your girl can't hear
you, and Jim and I ain't sympathetic. Set down in this chair, where we can
get at you." He enforced his command with some vigor, and Fleetwood groaned
again. But he shed no more tears, and he grew momentarily more lucid, as
the treatment took effect.

The tears were being shed in the stuffy little hotel parlor. The young
woman looked often at her watch, went into the hallway, and opened the
outer door several times, meditating a search of the town, and drew back
always with a timid fluttering of heart because it was all so crude and
strange, and the saloons so numerous and terrifying in their very bald