HE was straight, and grizzled, and keen of eye. He had worked, and fought, and gambled his way through the lawlessness and passion of the State's early life into the decency and uprightness of a successful contractor.
His name was Bill Bowen.
As a civil engineer, I came more or less in contact with him, and rejoiced in the largeness of his mental mold, as well as in the business sense of security he let me enjoy.
One summer's night we took a drive to a distant town on the San Joaquin River. We were to look at stone for bridge building, and the blistering heat of the day made us willing to lose our sleep for the more comfortable traveling by starlight.
The horses jogged lazily through the coarse, thick dust on the river's levee, and the insects from the grain fields and the frogs from the sloughs had things wholly to themselves until Bill suddenly interrupted.
"Mrs. Chase is pretty enough yet to understand why she sent two fellows to the devil, isn't she?"
"What are you talking about?" I answered.
"Oh," said Bill, pulling himself up, "I forgot you didn't struggle with the rest of us through those groggy days."
I knew Bill well enough to let him relapse just so many minutes; then I said: "Judge Chase's wife is lovelier at sixty than most girls at sixteen, but I hadn't an idea she figured so romantically in the early days as to send anybody overboard."