CHAPTER Ix 
EWING’S STORY 
As time passed speculation on our part concerning 
Ewing increased rather than diminished. The 
packer was without doubt a mystery. His face and 
bearing, his manner and his diction, certain telltale 
traits which stamped him as a man from another 
sphere of life—things incongruous with his assumed 
character and present occupation—whetted our curi- 
osity and aroused an interest in his personality 
which it was plain he by no means sought. 
Twenty times a day I puzzled over the matter. 
What rash act, what error, or what misfortune, had 
brought Ewing to this pass: A burro puncher at 
sixty dollars per month, and prone to frequent in- 
toxication? 
That was it, perhaps—drink! But then drinking, 
until it becomes itself a disease, is so often merely 
a symptom of some other, prior, deeper disturbance. 
Ewing did not strike one as a dipsomaniac. He 
seemed rather to make use of whiskey as a weapon 
against the virus of ennui or against his own more 
poisonous thoughts. 
No, I decided, drink alone was not his béte noire. 
What then? Often I itched to question him, but the 
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