Wint laughed. “Shouldn’t wonder if I took this too seriously,” he said. “Can’t be done,” Amos reassured him. “Any man that has to look out for other men has a serious job.” Wint said nothing to that. He was wondering if it were a part of his job to look out for Hetty, and that drunken man of the court. “That’s what being Mayor amounts to,” Amos remarked. “Found it so, haven’t you?” Wint stirred in his chair. “Amos,” he said, “a thing happened last night. I feel like telling you about it. Don’t need to ask you not to pass it on.” Amos tilted his head on one side, squinting at Wint wisely. “That’s all right,” he said. “Tell on.” The permission relieved Wint immensely; he felt as though he had been loosed from bondage. He told, in a swift rush of words, the story of Hetty. How she had come home last night. He went on, told about the man in court that day. He told Amos what had happened, what he had done, the order he had given Radabaugh. Amos looked at him curiously. “Told Jim that, did you?” “Yes.” “What did Foster say?” Wint grinned. “Said he’d be damned.” “I reckon not,” Amos decided, after a moment’s thought. “He won’t be. He’s all right.” “He thought I was foolish. I suppose I was.” Amos said slowly: “Depends on why you did it, Wint. Depends on what was in your mind.” That set Wint thinking again, trying to decide just what had been in his mind. Amos smoked steadily, not looking at Wint at all. At last he said again: “Yes, sir, Wint. Depends what was in your mind.” Wint assented thoughtfully. “I suppose so,” he said. Amos tried waiting in silence for him to go on; but Wint was busy thinking; he beat Amos at his own game without knowing it. He drove Caretall to ask: “What was in your mind, Wint?” The boy groped for words; he flushed uneasily, as though afraid of being laughed at. “Well,” he said, “I had a fool sort of a feeling that I was to blame.” Amos nodded slowly. “Well,” he said, “that’s what I meant--in a way--when I said you had a job that meant taking care of folks. Hetty, and that old rip--they’re folks, like any one else, like as not.” “Yes, they are,” Wint agreed. “Taking care of them; that’s your job, Wint. Maybe that just means fining them, and sending them to jail.” “I tell you I won’t do that again,” Wint exclaimed. “I told you the order I gave Jim Radabaugh.” “We-ell,” said Amos slowly. “That’s all right. Far as it goes. Might go farther.” “Farther? How?” Wint demanded. “What can I do?” “I hadn’t anything pa’ticular in mind,” Amos said carelessly. “Hadn’t a thing in mind.” He looked at Wint sidewise. Wint’s face was white with the intensity of his thought. Amos said slowly: “Looks like a shame to have drunk folks around in as pretty a town as Hardiston.” “A shame?” Wint cried. “It’s damnable.” “Guess most folks don’t like it,” Amos reminded him. “Town voted dry. Guess that shows most folks wanted it to be dry, don’t it?”