What a ring in his voice as he said it!  The beaten general speaks thus of his past triumphs.  The old man remembered his youth in such a voice.  The brakie was impressed; he repeated the three names.

“Even Suds?” he said.  “Was even Suds with you?”

“Even Suds!”

The brakie stirred a little, wabbling from side to side as he found a more comfortable position; instead of looking straight before him, he kept a side-glance steadily upon his companion, and one could see that he intended to remember what was said on this night.

“Even Suds,” echoed the brakie.  “Good heavens, and ain’t he a man for you?”

“He was a man,” replied Lefty Joe with an indescribable emphasis.

“Huh?”

“He ain’t a man any more.”

“Get bumped off?”

“No.  Busted.”

The brakie considered this bit of news and rolled it back and forth and tried its flavor against his gossiping palate.

“Did you fix him after he left you?”

“No.”

“I see.  You busted him while he was still with you.  Then Kennebec Lou and the Clipper get sore at the way you treat Suds.  So here you are back on the road with your gang all gone bust.  Hard luck, Lefty.”

But Lefty whined with rage at this careless diagnosis of his downfall.

“You’re all wrong,” he said.  “You’re all wrong.  You don’t know nothin’.”

The brakie waited, grinning securely into the night, and preparing his mind for the story.  But the story consisted of one word, flung bitterly into the rushing air.

“Donnegan!”

“Him?” cried the brakie, starting in his place.

“Donnegan!” cried Lefty, and his voice made the word into a curse.

The brakie nodded.

“Them that get tangled with Donnegan don’t last long.  You ought to know that.”

At this the grief, hate, and rage in Lefty Joe were blended and caused an explosion.

“Confound Donnegan.  Who’s Donnegan?  I ask you, who’s Donnegan?”

“A guy that makes trouble,” replied the brakie, evidently hard put to it to find a definition.

“Oh, don’t he make it, though?  Confound him!”

“You ought to of stayed shut of him, Lefty.”

“Did I hunt him up, I ask you?  Am I a nut?  No, I ain’t.  Do I go along stepping on the tail of a rattlesnake?  No more do I look up Donnegan.”

He groaned as he remembered.

“I was going fine.  Nothing could of been better.  I had the boys together.  We was doing so well that I was riding the cushions and I went around planning the jobs.  Nice, clean work.  No cans tied to it.  But one day I had to meet Suds down in the Meriton Jungle.  You know?”

“I’ve heard—­plenty,” said the brakie.

“Oh, it ain’t so bad—­the Meriton.  I’ve seen a lot worse.  Found Suds there, and Suds was playing Black Jack with an ol gink.  He was trimmin’ him close.  Get Suds going good and he could read ’em three down and bury ’em as fast as they came under the bottom card.  Takes a hand to do that sort of work.  And that’s the sort of work Suds was doing for the old man.  Pretty soon the game was over and the old man was busted.  He took up his pack and beat it, saying nothing and looking sick.  I started talking to Suds.