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Abner opened the gate and came slowly up on the porch beside Zed.

"Where is he?"

Zed nodded toward the spare room.

"Can I see him?"

"Why, shore, jest walk in."

But Abner did not approach the door. He stood on the porch, looking out over the village, at a spire over the roofs, at the barred windows of the county jail which he could see in another direction. These were narrow windows in a blank brick wall and looked grim and sinister, although now and then prisoners broke jail and escaped.

"Why don't you go in?" asked Zed at last.

"I don't want to," said Abner, for at the thought of seeing Mr. Ditmas drunken and degraded a queer pain had arisen in the youth's heart. In reality an idol of Abner's had fallen, and the young man shrank from looking at its prostrate form. Why he had set up Ditmas for an ideal, when he had done it, he did not know; but now, somehow the thought of Mr. Ditmas drunk was as harrowing as would have been the thought of a drunken sister.

"How's ever'thing in Arntown?" asked Abner in a mechanical voice, to hide his strange and surprising pain.

"All right. Of course, you know Perry Northcutt's suin' the railroad."

"Yep."

"They all say he'll shore git it. They say Railroad Jones is squirmin' like a eel tryin' to git up the money, but they say he kain't make it; no other banks won't let him have no money."

"When did you bring him up here?" Abner nodded toward the room in which Ditmas lay.

"This mornin' frum camp. We ain't more'n four mile east o' here now. We jest about got her connected up."

"Why won't the other banks let him have no money?"

"Well, they kinder stan' in with each other. When one banker decides to cut a man's th'oat, the others gin'rally