"Oh, not exactly drunk, but pretty wet. He knew what he was saying, however. Can't you give me something more?"
"Nothing." Boyd hurried to his hotel, a prey to mingled anger and contrition. So Fraser had told the truth, after all, and with a kind of sullen loyalty had chosen to remain under a cloud himself rather than inform on a friend. It was quite in keeping with the fellow's peculiar temperament. As it happened, Boyd found the two men together and lost no time in acquainting them with his discovery.
"I've come to apologize to you," he said to Fraser, who grinned broadly and was seized with a sudden abashment which stilled his tongue. Emerson turned to Clyde. "Why did you permit me to do this injustice?"
"I—I didn't mean to give out any secrets—I don't remember doing it," Alton apologized, lamely. "You know I can't drink much. I don't remember a thing about it, honestly." Boyd regarded him coldly, but the young man's penitence seemed so genuine, he looked so weak, so pitifully incompetent, that the other lacked heart to chastise him. It requires resistance to develop heat, and against the absence of character it is impossible to create any sort of emotion.
"When you got drunk that night you not only worked a great hardship on all of us, but afterward you allowed me to misjudge a very faithful man," declared Boyd. "Fraser's ways are not mine, and I have said harsh things to him when my temper prompted; but I am not ungrateful for the service he has done me and the sacrifices he has made. Now, Alton, you have chosen to join us in a desperate venture, and the farther we go the more vigorous will be the resistance we shall meet. If you can't keep a close mouth, and do as you are told, you'd better go back to Chicago. By rare good luck we have averted this disaster, but I have no hope of being so fortunate again."
"Don't climb any higher," admonished "Fingerless" Fraser. "He's all fluffed up now. I'll lay you eight to one he don't make another break of the kind."
"No, I was so com-cussed-pletely pickled that I forgot I even spoke about the salmon-canning business. I'll break my corkscrew and seal my flask, and from this moment until we come out next fall the demon rum and I are divorced. Is that good news?"
"Everything is a joke to you, isn't it?" said Boyd. "If this trip doesn't make a man of you, you'll never grow up. Now I've got work for all of us, including you, Fraser."
"What is it?"
"Go down to the freight-office and trace a shipment of machinery, while
I—"