He opened the door and, seemingly heedless of all else, hastened through to the bathroom, to shut off the flow of the shower. Lord James followed him as far as the corner cot, where Blake, wet-haired and half dressed, sat bowed far over, his elbows on his knees and his face between his hands.

"Head ache, old man?"

Blake raised his head barely enough for his friend to catch a glimpse of his haggard face and miserable eyes.

"Come now, Tommy," snapped Griffith, shuffling back from the bathroom, "we all admit you've made a damned fool of yourself; but what's the use of grouching? Sit up now—look pleasant!" He swung around a chair for Lord James, and seated himself in an old rocker. "Come, sit up, Tommy. We're going to hold an inquest on the remains."

"They need it—that's no lie," mumbled Blake.

"Bah! Cherk up, you rooster! It isn't the first time you've lost your feet. Maybe your feelings are jolted, but—the instrument is safe. Remember that time you fell down the fifty-foot bank and never even knocked your transit out of adjustment? You never let go of your grip on it! Come; you'll soon be streaking out again, same as ever."

"No, you're clean off this time, Grif." Instead of raising his head,
Blake hunched over still lower. He went on in a dreary monotone, "No,
I'm done for this trip—down for the count. I'm all in."

"Rot!" protested Lord James.

"All in, for keeps, this time. I'm not too big a fool to see that.
Everything coming my way,—and to go and chuck it all like this.
Needn't tell me she'll overlook it. Wouldn't ask her to. I'm not worth
it."

"She's got to!" cried Griffith, with sudden heat. "She steered you up against this."

"What if she did? Only makes it all the worse. Didn't have sand enough to refuse. I'm no good, that's all—not fit to look at her—she's a lady. You needn't cut in with any hot air. I'm no more 'n a blackguard that got my chance to impose on her—and took it. That's the only name for it—young girl all alone!"

"No, no, old man, just the contrary, believe me!" exclaimed Lord James.
"I doubt if I myself could have done what you did when she—er—"

"'Cause there'd have been no need. You're in her class, while I—" He groaned, and burst out morosely: "You know I'm not, both of you. What's the use of lying?"

The two friends glanced across at each other and were silent. Blake went on again, in his hopeless, dreary monotone. "Down and out—down and out. Only son of his mother, and she a drunkard. Nothing like Scripture, Jimmy, for consoling texts."

He began to quote, with an added bitterness in his despair: "'Woe unto them that are mighty to drink, and men of strength to mingle strong drink … their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust—' 'Awake, ye drunkards, and weep and howl, all ye drinkers of wine.' 'For while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.'—Dry? Good Lord! Ring up a can of suds, Grif. I've got ten miles of alkali desert down my throat!"

"All right, Tommy," said Griffith. "We'll soon fix that. I've sent in an order already."

"You have not!" rejoined Blake, in an incredulous growl. "Well, suppose you ring 'em up again. If that can doesn't get here mighty sudden, I'll save the fellow the trouble of bringing it."

"Hold on, young man," ordered Griffith, as Blake started to heave himself to his feet. "I'm running this soiree."

He stood up and shuffled out into the front room. Blake shifted around restlessly, and was again about to rise, when there came a sharp rapping at the outer door.

"That's the man now," said Lord James. "Hold tight. It will now be only a moment."

Blake restrained himself. But it was a very long moment before Griffith came in with a pitcher and three glasses upon a battered tray. At the tinkle of the glasses Blake looked up, his face aflame. He made a clutch at the pitcher.

[Illustration: He went on in a dreary monotone, "No, I'm done for this trip—down for the count. I'm all in."]

Griffith gave him his shoulder, and cackled: "Don't play the hog, Tommy. I've been up in Canada enough to know that the nobility always get first helping. Eh, Lord Scarbridge?"

"You—you—" gasped Blake.

"But this time," went on Griffith, hastily pouring out a brimming glassful of liquid from the pitcher, "we'll make an exception."

He turned about quickly, and with his hand clasped over the top of the glass, reached it out to Blake. Half maddened by his thirst, the latter clutched the glass, and, without pausing to look at its contents, drained it at a gulp. An instant later the glass shattered to fragments on the floor, and Blake's fist flung out toward Griffith.

"Quassia!" he growled. "You dotty old idiot! Needn't think you're going to head me off this soon!"

Griffith set the tray on his bed, and crossing to the door, locked it and put the key in his pocket.

"Now, Tommy," he croaked, "you've got just two friends that I know of. They're here. Maybe you can take the key from us; but you know what you'll have to do to us first."

Blake stared at him with morose, bloodshot eyes.

"You're dotty!" he growled. "You know you can't stop me, once I'm under way. I don't want to roughhouse it, but I want something for this thirst, and I'm going to have it. Understand?"

"H'm. If that's all," said Griffith.

"That's all, if you're reasonable," replied Blake less morosely. "They gave me all I wanted when I took the gold cure."

"Cured you, too," jeered Griffith.

"That's all right. The point now is, do I get something? If I do, I agree to stay here. If I don't, I'm going out."

"Try another glass of this while you're waiting," suggested Lord James, and he poured out a second glassful of the bitter decoction.

"No," answered Blake.

"You tossed down the other too fast. Sip it. You'll find that it will ease the dryness while you are waiting," insisted Lord James. "Try it, to oblige me."

"Ugh!" growled Blake. He hesitated, then reluctantly took the glass and began to sip the quassia. After the last swallow, he turned sullenly to Griffith. "Well, what you waiting for? Get a move on you."

"It does help, doesn't it?" interposed Lord James.

Blake muttered something behind his lips that the others chose to take for assent.

"Yes, it's the real thing," said Griffith. "Try another, Tommy, same way."

"Another? Bah! You can't fool me. I'm on to your game."

"Sure you are," assented Griffith. "What's more, you're sober enough now to know that our game is your game. Own up. Don't lie."

Blake looked down morosely, and for a long quarter of a minute his friends waited in anxious suspense. At last, without looking up, he held out his empty glass for Lord James to refill it. The second battle was won.

As Lord James took the glass, Griffith interposed. "Hold on. We'll keep that for later. I've something else now."

"More dope!" growled Blake.

"No, good stuff to offset the effects of the poison you've been swilling since morning. Next course is bromide of potassium."

"Take your medicine, bo!" chimed in Lord James.

"Ugh!" groaned Blake. "Dish it out, then. Only don't forget. You know, well as I do, that if the craving comes on that bad again, I'm bound to have a drink. I tell you, I can't help myself. I've told you about it time and again. It's hell till I get enough aboard to make me forget. You know I don't like the stuff. I've hated the very smell of it since before my first real spree."

Griffith shot a significant glance at Lord James. "That's all right, Tommy,—we understand how it is. But we've got hold of it this time. You'll never quit if you can help it, and we know now you can help it, with this quassia to keep your throat from sizzling. Here's your bromide."

Blake gulped down the dose, but muttered despondently: "What's the use?
You know you can't head me off for keeps, once I'm as far under way as
I've got to-day. Think you're going to stop me now, do you?"

"That's what," rejoined Griffith. "You'll think the same in about ten minutes. I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle."

"And I've got to sit here while you unwind your jaw! Cut it short. Don't see why you want to chin, anyway. All that's left is to haul me to the scrapheap. . . . You don't think I'd go near her after this, do you? I've got a little decency left. Only thing I can do is to open wide and cut loose. D.T. finish is the one for me. Won't take long for her to forget me. Any fool can see that."

"We're going up to Michamac, first thing tomorrow," remarked Griffith in a casual tone.

"You may be. I'm not."

"It's all arranged, Tammas," drawled Lord James. "I told Miss Leslie—"

"You told her! Mighty friendly of you! Good thing, though. Sooner she knows just what I am, the better. How soon do you figure on the wedding?"

"Chuck it, you duffer!" exclaimed the Englishman, flushing scarlet. "I didn't tell her this. She doesn't know."

Blake's haggard face lighted with a flash of hope, only to settle back into black despair.

"She'll learn soon enough. I'm done for, for good, this trip!" he groaned. He clenched his fist and bent forward to glare at them in sullen fury. "Damn you! Call yourselves my friends, and sit here yawping, you damned Job's comforters! Think I'm a mummy?—when I've lost her! God!—to sit here with my brains going—to know I've lost all—all! Give me some whiskey—anything! … My girl—my girl!"

He bent over, writhing and panting, in an agony of remorse.

Griffith fetched a tablet and a glass of water, to which he added some of the quassia.

"Here's your dose of sulphonal," he said, in his driest, most matter-of-fact tone. "You've got to get to sleep. It's an early train."

"What's the use? Leave me alone!" groaned Blake.

"Gad, old man," put in Lord James. "Any one who didn't know you would think you were a quitter."

"What's the use? I've lost out. I'm smashed."

"All right. Let's call it a smashup," croaked Griffith. "Just the same, you don't go out of commission till you've squared accounts. You're not going to leave the Zariba Dam in the air."

"Guess I've got enough on paper for you to work out the solution, if it's workable."

"And if not?"

"I'm all in, I tell you. I'm smashed for good."

"No, you're not. Anyway, there's one thing you've got to do. You've got to settle about that bridge. You've been too busy over the dam to think of asking for a look at Ashton's plans, and I've said nothing. I've been waiting for you to make good on the dam. With that behind you, no engineer in the U.S. would doubt your word if you claimed the bridge."

"What of that? What do I care?" muttered Blake. "The game's up. What's the use?"

"This!" snapped Griffith. "Either Laffie Ashton is a dirty sneak thief, or he's a man that deserves my apologies. It's a question of fair play to me as well as to him. You're square, Tom. You'll come up to Michamac with me and settle this matter."

"Lord! Why can't you let me alone?" groaned Blake. But he took the sulphonal and washed it down with the quassia-flavored water.

Lord James went out into the office to phone his man at the hotel to fetch over clothes for a short trip. When he reentered the bedroom Blake was stretched out in bed, and Griffith was spreading a blanket for himself on the floor.

"Should I not run over to my hotel for the night?" remarked the
Englishman. "Don't want to put you out of your bed, y' know."

"No. I sleep as well, or better, on the floor. We want to be sure of an early start," said Griffith.

Blake rose on his elbow and blinked at them. His eyes were still bloodshot and his face haggard, but the change in his voice was unmistakably for the better. "Say, bos, it does pay to have friends—sometimes!"

"Forget it!" rejoined Griffith. "You go to snoozing. It's an early train, remember."

Blake sighed drowsily, and stretched out again on the flat of his back.
Within a minute he was fast asleep.