The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-21
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around on raft made of sawmill slabs. One of the two-who always had more daredeviltry than sense un- der his skull thatch-was silly enough to rock the boat and it went to pieces. You couldn't swim, Howard, but if you hadn't forgotten that trifing handicap and widowed in to pull poor Billy Mimms ashore I should have been murderer"
 Lidgerwood shook his head
 "You think you have made. your case, but you haven't. What you say is true enough. I wasn't afraid of drowning didn't think much about it either way, guess. But what I say is true also. There are many kinds of courage and quite as many kinds of cowardice I am a coward of men,"
 "Oh, no, you're not; you only think you are," protested the one who thought he knew. But Lidgerwood would not let that stand.
 "1 know I am. Hear me through and then judge for yourself. What I am going to tell you I have never told to any living man, but it is your right to hear it. God, Stuart, you don't know what fear means-the degradation, the hot and cold chills of self bathing, the :, sfckening misery of having your own soul turn upon you to rend and tear you like rabid dogv'
 "No, I don't know what it means" said the other man, moved more than he cared to admit by the abject con- fession.
 "Of course you don't Nobody else can know. I am paying the price here and now. This is the fourth time I have had to refuse good offer that carried with it the fighting chance"
 The vice presidents heavy eyebrows slanted in questioning surprise.
 You knew in advance that you were going to turn me down. Yet you came thousand miles to meet me here, and you admit that you have gone the length of looking the ground over."
 Lidgerwood's smile was mirthless.
 "A regular recurring phase of the disease. It manifests itself in a de- termination to break away and do or die in the effort to win a little self respect
 The vice president was still young man, and he was confronting a prob lem that annoyed him. He had been calling himself. and not without req son, a fair judge of men. Yet here was a man whom he had known in- dmately from boyhood, who was but just now revealing totally unsuspect- ed quality.
 "How do you know you wouldn't buck up when the real pinch comes?" he demanded
 Because the pinch came once, and I didn't buck up. It was over a year ago, and to this good day can't think calmly about it. You will understand when say that it cost me the love of the one woman in the world"
 The vice president did understand. Being a married lover himself, he could measure the depth of the abyss into which Lidgerwood was looking. Bis voice was as sympathetic as a ~oman's when he said: GO ahead and ease your mind; tell me about, if you can, Howard. It's barely possible that you are not the best judge of your own act"
 'It was in the Montana mountains" said Lidgerwood. "I was going in to do a bit of expert engineering for her father. Incidentally I was escorting her and her mother from the railroad terminus to the summer camp in the hills, where they were to join coach ing party of their friends for the Yel- lowstone tour We had to drive forty miles in stage, and there were six of us, the two women and four men. On the way the talk turned to stage rob- berries and holdups. With the chance of the real thing as remote as a visit from Mars. I could be an ass and braggart. One of the men, a salesman Tor a powder company, gave me the rope wherewith to hang myself. He argued for nonresistance, and I re- member that grew sarcastic over the spectacle afforded by a grown man, armed and in possession of his five senses, permitting himself to be robbed without attempting to resist. You can guess what followed
 "Td rather hear you tell it." said the listener at Superintendent Leckhard's desk. ''Go on.'
 Three miles beyond the supper sta tionS we had our holdup, couple of Winchesters poking through the scrub pines to represent the gang in hiding ana enc lone, crippled 2esperado to one down to the footiights in the speaking part. You get the picture?
 Yes; I've seen the original"
 Before anybody realized what vas happening the cripple had us lined up in row beside the stage. and I was reaching for the stars quite as anx- iously as the little salesman, who was swearing that the twenty dollar bill in his right hand pocket was his entire fortune"
 Naturally" Ford commented "You needn't rawhiae yourself for that