Jem Moor looked up at him. He was pinched and the lines of his nose were drawn, and his lips were pulling. “She’s skipped,” he said. “I’m in for ’Leven Hundred odd, to Bunchy.” Something in the Inger leaped out and soared. He stood there, saying what he had to say, conscious all the time that as soon as might be he should be free to soar with it. “Alone?” he demanded. Jem Moor held out a scrap of paper. The Inger took it and read, the others peering over his arms and shoulders. “Dad,” it said, “I can’t go Bunchy. I know what this’ll do to you, but I can’t never do it—I can’t. I’ve gone for good. Dear old Dad, don’t you hate me. “LORY.” The tears were running down Jem Moor’s face. “‘Leven Hundred odd,” said he, “and I ain’t a red. Not a red.” The Inger threw up his head. “Lord Harry,” he cried. “Why didn’t I think of it before? Buck up!” he cried, bringing down his hand on Jem’s little shoulder. “And drink up! Come along in!” He led the way to the Mission Saloon, and bade the man take orders for everybody. Then he went to the back of the place, and found for himself ink and a pen, and tore a leaf from a handy account book. When he had filled in the name of his bank, he wrote and signed: “Pay to Bunchy Haight, Twelve Hundred Dollars and be damned to him.” Then he wrote out a receipt to Jem Moor, with a blank for the sum and for Bunchy’s signature. When he could, he drew Jem in a corner and thrust at him the papers. The little man stared at them, with a peculiarly ugly, square dropping of his jaw, and eyes pointed at top. “Don’t bust,” said the Inger, “and don’t think it’s you. It ain’t you. The check isn’t drawn to you, is it? I want to hell-and-devil Bunchy some, that’s all. Shut up your mouth!” he added, when Jem tried gaspingly to thank him. Then he got out of the place, where sharp music was beginning and the ten or twelve women were dancing among the tables, and went down the street, thronged now with the disappointed guests, intent on forcing the ruined evening to some wild festivity. When they called to him to join them, he hardly heard. He went straight through the town and shook it from him and met the desert, and took his own trail. The night was now one of soft, thick blackness, on which the near stars pressed. The air had a sharp chill—as if it bore no essence of its own but hung empty of warmth when the daylight was drained from it. The stillness was insistent. In a place of water, left from the rains, and still deep enough to run in ripples over the sedge, frogs were in chorus. There was a sentinel pepper tree on the edge of the town and here a mocking-bird sang out, once, and was still. These left behind, and the saw and crack and beat of the music dying, the Inger faced the dark, gave himself to the exultation which flowed in him, mounted with it to a new place.