"
"Was it fear this evening?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, "it was. It was fear of a coward's name, and a sort of
abject horror of being one."
"Too big a coward inside," I laughed, "to be a big stout coward outside,"
and he assented.
"Smith," he said, and paused long, "if I were a hard drinker and should
try to quit, it wouldn't be courage that would carry me through, but fear;
quaking fear of a drunkard's life and a drunkard's death."
I was about to rejoin that the danger was already at his door, but he read
the warning accusation in my eye.
"I'm afraid so," he responded. "I had a strange experience once," he
presently added, as if reminded of it by what we had last said. "I took a
prisoner."
"By the overwhelming power of fear?" I inquired.
"Partly, yes. I saw him before he saw me and I felt that if I didn't take
him he'd either take me or shoot me, so I covered him and he surrendered.
We were in an old pine clearing grown up with oak bushes."
"Would it have been less strange," I inquired, "if you had been in an old
oak clearing grown up with pine bushes?"
"No, he'd have got away just the same."
"What! you didn't bring him in?"
"Only part of the way. Then he broke and ran.
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