"I've quit."
"It's all right to quit; but don't quit so sudden—taper off."
Orman shook his head. "I ain't blamin' it on the booze," he said; "there's no one nor nothing to blame but me—but if I hadn't been drinkin' this would never have happened, and White and those other poor devils would have been alive now."
"One won't hurt, Tom; you need it."
Orman lay silent in thought for a moment; then he threw aside the mosquito bar and stood up. "Perhaps you're right, Pat," he said.
He stepped to a heavy, well-worn pigskin bag that stood at the foot of his cot and, stooping, took out a fat bottle and a tumbler. He shook a little as he filled the latter to the brim.
O'Grady grinned. "I said one drink, not four."
Slowly Orman raised the tumbler toward his lips. He held it there for a moment looking at it; then his vision seemed to pass beyond it, pass through the canvas wall of the tent out into the night toward the new-made graves.
With an oath, he hurled the full tumbler to the ground; the bottle followed it, breaking into a thousand pieces.
"That's goin' to be hell on bare feet," remarked O'Grady.