Even when a man consistently takes Life in twenty-four-hour doses and likes those doses full-flavored with the joys of this earth, there are intervals when the soul of him is sick, and Life becomes a nauseous progression of bleak futility.  He may, in his revulsion against it, attempt to end it all; he may, in sheer disgust of it, take his doses stronger than ever before, as if he would once for all choke to death that part of him which is fine enough to rebel against it; he may even forswear, in melancholy penitence, that which has served to give it flavor, and vow him vows of abstemiousness at which the grosser part of him chuckles ironically; or, he may blindly follow the first errant impulse for change of environment, in the half-formed hope that new scenes may, without further effort on his part, serve to make of him a new man—­a man for whom he can feel some respect.

Ford did none of these things, however.  The soul-sick incentive was there, and if he had been a little less of a reasoning animal and a little less sophisticated, he would probably have forsworn strong drink just as he forswore all responsibility for his inadvertent marriage.  His reason and his experience saved him from cluttering his conscience with broken vows, although he did yield to the impulse of change to the extent of leaving Sunset while yet the inhabitants were fortifying themselves for the ardors of the day with breakfast and some wild prophecies concerning Ford’s next outbreak.

Apprehension over Bill’s immediate future was popular amongst his friends, Ford’s sardonic reference to manslaughter and bounty being repeated often enough in Bill’s presence to keep that peace-loving gentleman in a state of trepidation which he sought to hide behind vague warnings.

“He better think twicet before he comes bothering around me, by hokey!” Bill would mutter darkly.  “I’ve stood a hull lot from Ford; I like ’im, when he’s himself.  But I’ve stood about as much as a man can be expected to stand.  And he better look out!  That’s all I got to say—­he better look out!” Bill himself, it may be observed incidentally, spent the greater portion of that day in “looking out.”  He was careful not to sit down with his back to a door, for instance, and was keenly interested when a knob turned beneath unseen fingers, and plainly relieved when another than Ford entered his presence.  Bill’s mustache was nearly pulled from its roots, that day—­but that is not important to the story, which has to do with Ford Campbell, sometime the possessor of a neat legacy in coin, later a rider of the cattle ranges, last presiding genius over the poker table in Scotty’s back room in Sunset, always an important factor—­and too often a disturbing element—­in any community upon which he chose to bestow his dynamic presence.