Then Ben come down and had a wholehearted session with me. He said I ought to have a talk with Ed and reason him out of his folly. I said Ed would listen to a number of things, but not to reason. He said he knew it; that the poor coot should be in some good institution right now, where the state could look after him. He said he couldn't answer for the consequences if Ed kept on in this mad way. He said here he was, climbing up in his profession, and yet with this scandal in his private life that might crop out any time and blast his career; and, by doggie, it was a shame! He said it was hanging over him like a doom and sometimes he even woke up in the night and wished he had made a different report about the accident--one with a little hysterics or description in it, like this maniac had seemed to crave. "It ain't that I can't lick him," says Ben--"I've proved that three times; but having to do it every so often, which is beneath the dignity of a high railroad official. I might as well be a common rowdy and be done with it, by doggie! And no telling what will happen if he don't get his mind back. The little devil is an awful scrapper. I noticed it more than ever this last time. One of these times he might get me. He might get me good." "You better let him, then," I says, "and have it over. That's the only thing which will ever stop him. You take a man that says he was licked fair, but still keeps at it, and he's deadly. Next time he comes along you lay down after making a decent resistance. Then he'll probably be your friend for life, especially if you tell him you been thinking about his accident and it now seems like the most horrible accident that ever happened to man." It was the most encouragement I could give and he went off gloomy. Ben was certainly one conscientious objector. Nothing come from Ed for over a year. Then he writes that he has give up the cattle business for good, because Mexico is in a state of downright anarchy and he has been shot through the shoulder. He put it well. He said he had been shot from ambush by a cowardly Mexican and I wouldn't believe how lawless that country was. So now he was going to take up mining in God's own country, where a man could get a square deal if he kept out of railroading. And was Ben keeping up his exercise? He stayed under the surface for about three years. Neither Ben nor I heard a word from him. I told Ben it was many chances to one that he had gone under at the hands of someone that wanted to keep his cattle or his mine or something. Ben looked solemn and relieved at this suggestion. He said if the Grim Reaper had done its work, well and good! Life was full of danger for the best of us, with people dropping off every day or so; and why should Ed have hoped to be above the common lot?