“But if you would just make up your mind, you could win.”

“Could I?” His tone was amusedly skeptical, but his eyes were still somber.

“Even a woman,” she said impatiently, “knows that is not the way to win a fight—­to send for the enemy and give him all your weapons, and a plan of the fortifications, and the password; when you know there’s no mercy to be hoped for!”

He smiled at her simile, and at her earnestness also, perhaps; but that black gloom remained, looking out of his eyes.

“What made you send for it?  A whole gallon!”

“I didn’t send for it.  That jug belongs to Mose,” he told her simply.  “Dick told me Mose had it; rather, Dick went into the kitchen and got it, and turned it over to me.”  In spite of the words, he did not give one the impression that he was defending himself; he was merely offering an explanation because she seemed to demand one.

“Dick got it and turned it over to you!” Her forehead wrinkled again into vertical lines.  She studied him frowningly.  “Will you give it to me?” she asked directly.

Ford folded his arms and scowled down at the jug.  “No,” he refused at last, “I won’t.  If booze is going to be the boss of me I want to know it.  And I can’t know it too quick.”

“But—­you’re only human, Ford!”

“Sure.  But I’m kinda hoping I’m a man, too.”  His eyes lightened a little while they rested upon her.

“But you’ve got the poison of it—­it’s like a traitor in your fort, ready to open the door.  You can’t do it!  I—­oh, you’ll never understand why, but I can’t let you risk it.  You’ve got to let me help; give it to me, Ford!”

“No, You go on to the house, and don’t bother about me.  You can’t help—­nobody can.  It’s up to me.”

She struck her hands together in a nervous rage.  “You want to keep it because you want to drink it!  If you didn’t want it, you’d hate to be near it.  You’d want some one to take it away.  You just want to get drunk, and be a beast.  You—­you—­oh—­you don’t know what you’re doing, or how much it means!  You don’t know!” Her hands went up suddenly and covered her face.

Ford walked the length of the room away from her, turned and came back until he faced her where she stood leaning against the door, with her face still hidden behind her palms.  He reached out his arms to her, hesitated, and drew them back.

“I wish you’d go,” he said.  “There are some things harder to fight than whisky.  You only make it worse.”

“I’ll go when you give me that.”  She flung a hand out toward the jug.

“You’ll go anyway!” He took her by the arm, quietly pulled her away from the door, opened it, and then closed it while, for just a breath or two, he held her tightly clasped in his arms.  Very gently, after that, he pushed her out upon the doorstep and shut the door behind her.  The lock clicked a hint which she could not fail to hear and understand.  He waited until he heard her walk away, sat down with the air of a man who is very, very weary, rested his elbows upon his knees, and with his hands clasped loosely together, he glowered at the jug on the floor.  Then the soul of Ford Campbell went deep down into the pit where all the devils dwell.