As Max listened, his face slowly lost a little of its frown, and he rolled over on his back, to stretch his hot hand up to Alex.
“You’re a good fellow, Alex,” he said, with a new and softer light in his eyes. “You’ve done me a good turn to-day, and I know it.”
“Prove it by letting those fellows alone, in the future,” responded Alex quickly.
“I will, honestly, now. I didn’t stay as late as the others,” confessed Max penitently; “I did take some of the stuff, though, but when I saw how ’twas going, I sneaked out and came home. I wish I’d come earlier, so I needn’t have had this abominable headache. Truly, though, Alex, I only took a little.” And his voice was almost pleading, as he spoke. “I’m sorry I did that, but it wasn’t enough to do the least bit of hurt.”
Once more the silence was only broken by the rushing water below them, and the bird-songs from the branches above their heads. Then Alex spoke again, but slowly and as if with an effort.
“Max,” he said, “I’m not over fond of pulling family skeletons out of their closets, and you fellows all know that I’m not much given to talking about my own affairs. I suppose you all have wondered at my being here, when I’m so much older than the rest of you. I think I’ll tell you all the story now, for it can’t do any harm, and it may save you a little something by and by.”
As he paused, there was a slight catch in his breath. Leon rose, as if to leave them alone.
“Don’t go, Leon,” he went on. “Except for the doctor and Lieutenant Wilde, Hal is the only one here who knows this, so you may as well stay and hear it out, too. It isn’t a pretty story, but I’ll try to make it as short as I can.”
Leon dropped back into his former place beside Alex, who continued, with his eyes fixed on the water below,—
“You see, in the first place you must remember that life in Denver isn’t much as it is here in the east. Out there, everybody drinks wine, as a matter of course, and it comes into everything from a business contract to an evening call. You have it here, I know; but not near so much. Well, my father, when he went out there, was a gay, handsome young man with a splendid reputation in his profession—he’s a doctor, you know—just the kind of a man to be popular and in demand in a social way. Being in society out there means, almost as a matter of course, taking more or less wine; and father was just like all the rest of them, only he couldn’t stand as much as some others. From a little and a little, he went on until the little had come to be a great deal, and he had grown to depend on it, as a daily need. Even then, his old patients stuck to him, for ’twas a saying that they’d ‘rather have Dr. Sterne drunk than any other doctor sober.’ But it had gone too far to stop, and slowly—What’s the use of dwelling on it? Father finally reached the point where he was a common street drunkard, without practice and without money. I tell you, Max, those were bad times, and I remember them well. They aren’t the kind of thing one wants to live through, or to talk about, either. It went on so for several years, and then, eight years ago, the change came. People said ’twas miraculous and wouldn’t last, and even we never knew what started him; but all at once father braced up a little. He had a few good friends out there, among the solid, true men of the city, and with their help, he scrambled up on his feet again. They wanted him to go away, and start fresh somewhere else; but he said no, he’d gone under there, and there he’d come up, till he’d lived down the past. There aren’t many men strong enough to do it, and the fight was a terrible one; but now he has won back his old place in the city, and his reputation is higher than ever. Still, it has made an old man of him; and it all started from just such light social drinking as you tried last night.”