The Best Short Stories of 1915 | Page 7

the combined attack of Jarrick and myself, was
maintaining the argument. "There is no such thing as instinctive
bravery," he affirmed, for the fifth time at least, "amongst intelligent
men. Every one of us is naturally a coward. Of course we are. The more
imagination we've got the more we can realize how pleasant life is,
after all, and how rotten the adjuncts of sudden death. It's reason that
does the trick--reason and tradition. Do you know of any one who is
brave when he is alone--except, that is, when it is a case of
self-preservation? No! Of course not. Did you ever hear of any one
choosing to go along a dangerous road or to ford a dangerous river
unless he had to--that is, any one of our class, any man of education or
imagination? It's the greater fear of being thought afraid that makes us
brave. Take a lawyer in a shipwreck--take myself! Don't you suppose
he's frightened? Naturally he is, horribly frightened. It's his reason, his
mind, that after a while gets the better of his poor pipe-stem legs and
makes them keep pace with the sea-legs about them."
"It's condition," said Jarrick doggedly--"condition entirely. All has to
do with your liver and digestion. I know; I fox-hunt, and when I was
younger--yes, leave my waist alone!--I rode jumping races. When
you're fit there isn't a horse alive that bothers you, or a fence, for that
matter, or a bit of water."

"Ever try standing on a ship's deck, in the dark, knowing you're going
to drown in about twenty minutes?" asked Hill.
Hardy leaned forward to strike a match for his cigarette. "I don't agree
with you," he said.
"Well, but--" began Hill.
"Neither of you."
"Oh, of course, you're outside the argument. You lead an adventurous
life. You keep in condition for danger. It isn't fair."
"No." Hardy lit his cigarette and inhaled a puff thoughtfully. "You don't
understand. All you have to say does have some bearing upon things,
but, when you get down to brass tacks, it's instinct--at the last gasp, it's
instinct. You can't get away from it. Look at the difference between a
thoroughbred and a cold-blooded horse! There you are! That's true. It's
the fashion now to discount instinct, I know; well--but you can't get
away from it. I've thought about the thing--a lot. Men are brave against
their better reason, against their conscience. It's a mixed-up thing. It's
confusing and--and sort of damnable," he concluded lamely.
"Sort of damnable!" ejaculated Hill wonderingly.
"Yes, damnable."
I experienced inspiration. "You've got a concrete instance back of that,"
I ventured.
Hardy removed his gaze from the ceiling. "Er--" he stammered. "Why,
yes--yes. That's true."
"You'd better tell it," suggested Hill; "otherwise your argument is not
very conclusive."
Hardy fumbled with the spoon of his empty coffee-cup. It was a curious
gesture on the part of a man whose franknesses were as clean-cut as his
silences. "Well--" he began. "I don't know. Perhaps. I did know a man,

though, who saved another man's life when he didn't want to, when
there was every excuse for him not to, when he had it all reasoned out
that it was wrong, the very wrongest possible thing to do; and he saved
him because he couldn't help it, saved him at the risk of his own life,
too."
"He did!" murmured Hill incredulously.
"Go on!" I urged. I was aware that we were on the edge of a revelation.
Hardy looked down at the spoon in his hand, then up and into my eyes.
"It's such a queer place to tell it"--he smiled deprecatingly--"here, in
this restaurant. It ought to be about a camp-fire, or something like that.
Here it seems out of place, like the smell of bacon or sweating mules.
Do you know Los Pinos? Well, you wouldn't. It was just a few shacks
and a Mexican gambling-house when I saw it. Maybe it isn't there any
more, at all. You know--those places! People build them and then go
away, and in a year there isn't a thing, just desert again and shifting
sand and maybe the little original old ranch by the one spring." He
swept the table-cloth with his hand, as if sweeping something into
oblivion, and his eyes sought again the spoon. "It's queer, that business.
Men and women go out to lonely places and build houses, and for a
while everything goes on in miniature, just as it does here--daily bread
and hating and laughing--and then something happens, the gold gives
out or the fields won't pay, and in no time nature is back again. It's a
big fight. You lose track of it in crowded places." He raised his head
and settled his arms comfortably on the table.
"I wasn't there