Gabbling, keeping time to his nervous feet and hands, endlessly repeating himself, denying, confessing, the miner raged on, and through it all the dark-browed guest smoked tranquilly, too indifferent to ask a question or make comment; but when, once or twice, he lifted his eyes, the garrulous one shuddered and turned away, a scared look on his haggard face. He seemed unable to endure that steady glance.
At last, for a little space, he remained silent; then, as if compelled by some increasing magic in his hearer, he burst forth:
"I'm not here entirely by my own fault—I mean my own choice. A man is a product of his environment, you know that, and mine made me idle, wasteful. Drink got me—drink made me mad—and so—and so—here I am struggling to win back a fortune. Once I gambled—on the wheel; now I am gambling with nature on the green of these mountain slopes; but I'll win—I have already won—and soon I shall sell and go back to the great cities."
Again his will curbed his treacherous tongue, and, walking to the doorway, he stood for a moment, looking out; then he fiercely snarled:
"Oh, God, how I hate it all—how I hate myself! I am going mad with this life! The squeak of these shadowy conies, the twitter of these unseen little birds, go on day by day. They'll drive me mad! If you had not come to-night I could not have slept—I would have gone to the mill, and that means drink to me—drink and oblivion. You came and saved me. I feared you—hated you then; now I bless you."
Once more he seemed to answer an unspoken query:
"I have no people. My mother is dead, my father has disowned me—he does not even know I am alive. I'm the black devil of the family—but I shall go back—"
His face was working with passion, and though he took a seat opposite his guest, his hands continued to flutter aimlessly and his head moved restlessly from side to side.
"I don't know why I am telling all this to you," he went on after a pause. "I reckon it's because of the weakness of the thirst that is coming over me. Some time I'll go down to those hell-holes at the mills and never come back—the stuff they sell to me is destructive as fire—it is poison! You're a man of substance, I can see that—you're no hobo like most of the fellows out here—that's why I'm talking to you. You remind me of some one I know. There's something familiar in your eyes."
The man with the beard struck the ashes from his pipe and began scraping it. "There is always a woman in these cases," he critically remarked.