"Now," he says steady, "I owe you fellows something--I owe you a great deal, Perez--I'd started to finish on the alcohol route. I don't like the company I keep. If I'm going to die I'll die with a better man than you stopped, Bill. In fact, I think my kid fit is over. I reckon I'll try to live like a man, and as a start I'm going to tell you both what ails me--to have it out for once. So help me, it isn't for myself--it's for you, Henry. You've invested time and money in me, and you sha'n't lose it. If you know what you're up against, you may be able to help me help myself. I'm sick of myself. All my life I have kept my mouth shut, out of a foolish pride. The little sacrifice will be something on the altar of friendship, Henry, old man. Come along to my room." XI SAXTON'S STORY We seated ourselves around the table in Saxton's bedroom. "Perez," said Saxton, "you know from the beginning the boy and girl love affair between me and Mary Smith. It was no small thing for me. I cared then and I care now. I think the one thing which stood between Mary and myself as the greatest point of difference was my trick of stripping things to the bare facts. She liked romance, whether fact or not; I liked the romance that lay in fact. She cared for me--that is certain, but some reports when I was about nineteen to the effect that I was raising the devil, and had led a weak-headed fellow astray with me, seemed to give the girl a permanent twist against me. Now here's the truth. In our little town we had a number of men who earned comfortable fortunes and then laid back. Their boys, with nothing to do and nothing in their heads, acted as one might suppose. They took to drinking and gambling, not because they were bad but simply to pass the time; the town was dull enough, God knows. Pretty soon the wilder crowd became an open scandal. Among them were some of my best friends, and I went with 'em, with as sincere a desire to line 'em up with decency again as any long-faced deacon in the town; but instead of spouting piety, I thought I would play their game until I could get 'em to play mine, that is, I took a drink with 'em, and I played some poker with 'em, all the while trying to show the strongest head and the most checks when it came to 'cash-up' in the poker game. I felt that if I could beat 'em, what I said would go.