“Well, what do you know about that?” he queried, under his breath, released the ticket from the grip of the stamp, and flipped it into the drawer beneath the shelf as if it were so much waste paper.

“That’s my ticket,” Ford reminded him levelly.

“You don’t want it now, do you?” The agent grinned at him.  “Oh, I forgot you couldn’t read that.”  He tilted his head back toward the instrument.  “A wire just went through—­the court-house at Garbin caught fire in the basement—­something about the furnace, they think—­and she’s going up in smoke.  Hydrants are froze up so they can’t get water on it.  That fixes your looking up the record, Ford.”

Ford stared hard at him.  “Well, I might hunt up the preacher and ask him,” he said, his tone dropping again to dull discouragement.

The agent chuckled.  “From all I hear,” he observed rashly, “you’ve made that same preacher mighty hard to catch!”

Ford drummed upon the shelf and scowled at the smoke-blackened window, beyond which the snow was sweeping aslant.  Upon his own side of the ticket window, the agent pared his nails with his pocket-knife and watched him furtively.

“Oh, hell!  What do I care, anyway?” Revulsion seized Ford harshly.  “I guess I can stand it if she can.  She came here and married me—­it isn’t my funeral any more than it is hers.  If she wants to be so darned mysterious about it, she can go plumb—­to—­New York!” There were a few decent traits in Ford Campbell; one was his respect for women, a respect which would not permit him to swear about this wife of his, however exasperating her behavior.

“That’s the sensible way to look at it, of course,” assented the agent, who made it a point to agree always with a man of Ford’s size and caliber, on the theory that amiability means popularity, and that placation is better than plasters.  “You sure ought to let her do the hunting—­and the worrying, too.  You aren’t to blame if she married you unawares.  She did it all on her own hook—­and she must have known what she was up against.”

“No, she didn’t,” flared Ford unexpectedly.  “She made a mistake, and I wanted to point it out to her and help her out of it if I could.  She took me for some one else, and I was just drunk enough to think it was a joke, I suppose, and let it go that way.  I don’t believe she found out she tied up to the wrong man.  It’s entirely my fault, for being drunk.”

“Well, putting it that way, you’re right about it,” agreed the adaptable Lew.  “Of course, if you hadn’t been—­”

“If whisky’s going to let a fellow in for things like this, it’s time to cut it out altogether.”  Ford was looking at the agent attentively.

“That’s right,” assented the other unsuspectingly.  “Whisky is sure giving you the worst of it all around.  You ought to climb on the water-wagon, Ford, and that’s a fact.  Whisky’s the worst enemy you’ve got.”