“You go, if you want to.” Bud tilted the bottle again, his eyes half closed while he swallowed. When he had finished, he shuddered violently at the taste of the whisky. He got up, went to the water bucket and drank half a dipper of water. “Good glory! I hate whisky,” he grumbled. “Takes a barrel to have any effect on me too.” He turned and looked down at Frank with a morose kind of pity. “You go on and get your breakfast, kid. I don't want any. I'll stay here for awhile.” He sat down on the side of the cheap, iron bedstead, and emptied his pockets on the top quilt. He straightened the crumpled bills and counted them, and sorted the silver pieces. All told, he had sixty-three dollars and twenty cents. He sat fingering the money absently, his mind upon other things. Upon Marie and the baby, to be exact. He was fighting the impulse to send Marie the money. She might need it for the kid. If he was sure her mother wouldn't get any of it... A year and a half was quite a while, and fifteen hundred dollars wasn't much to live on these days. She couldn't work, with the baby on her hands... Frank watched him curiously, his jaws still resting between his two palms, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen, his lips loose and trembling. A dollar alarm clock ticked resonantly, punctuated now and then by the dull clink of silver as Bud lifted a coin and let it drop on the little pile. “Pretty good luck you had last night,” Frank ventured wishfully. “They cleaned me.” Bud straightened his drooping shoulders and scooped the money into his hand. He laughed recklessly, and got up. “We'll try her another whirl, and see if luck'll bring luck. Come on--let's go hunt up some of them marks that got all the dough last night. We'll split, fifty-fifty, and the same with what we win. Huh?” “You're on, ho--let's go.” Bud had gauged him correctly--Frank would follow any one who would lead. He got up and came to the table where Bud was dividing the money into two equal sums, as nearly as he could make change. What was left over--and that was the three dollars and twenty cents--he tossed into the can of tobacco on a shelf. “We'll let that ride--to sober up on, if we go broke,” he grunted. “Come on--let's get action.”