dreams of what Lincoln had faced and conquered; of what he, too, might achieve. But now he could see them only dispiritedly as hollow shapes; misty things without hope or substance. That bucket now—a sip from it would rehabilitate them, give them at least the semblance of attainability. There lay relief from despair!
His mind flashed back to his father's rebuke and his answer: "Ye says I lay drunk. Thet's true an' hit's a shameful thing fer a man ter admit. … But hit's a thing I've got ter fight out fer myself."
A great indignation against his father's misunderstanding possessed him. He must fight in his own way! Even Blossom had only asked him not to drink "too much."
When it needed only an hour more for the coming of dawn, his face grew darkly sullen.
"Hit's hell thet I've got ter spend my whole life a-brewin' ther stuff ergin my will—takin' chances of ther jail-house fer hit—an' yit I kain't have a drink when I'm wet ter ther bone," he growled.
Going as if drawn by a power stronger than his own volition, he moved balkingly yet with inevitable progress once more to the bucket. He half filled the cup—raised it—and this time gulped it down greedily and recklessly to the bottom.
Immediately his chilled veins began to glow with an ardent gratefulness. The stars seemed brighter and the little voices of the night became sweeter. The iron-bound gates of imagination swung wide to a pageantry of dreams, and as he crouched in the reeking underbrush, he half forgot his discontent.
Repeatedly he dipped and drained the cup. He was still on duty, but now he watched with a diminished vigilance. Gradually his senses became more blunt. The waking dreams were vaguer, too, and more absurd.
He still tended the fire under the kettle—but he laughed scornfully at the foolish need of keeping his face always in the shadow. Then suddenly he dropped down close to the dark earth, let the cup splash into the bucket, and thrust forward his rifle.
His ears had caught a sound which might have been a raccoon stirring in the brush—or a fox slipping covertly through the fallen hemlock top.
But there was no repetition, so he laughed again and with the first pallid hint of dawn on the ridges he shook the shoulder of his sleeping companion. Then he himself sank down in the heavy torpor of exhaustion and drunkenness.
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