Some one slammed the door and began to curse.
"That ends that," said Colonel Pepper, as the three moved down the dim hall.
"It ends us, Pepper, but you couldn't stop those guys with a crowbar," retorted Dalrymple.
Lane linked arms with the boy and changed the conversation while they walked back to the inn.

Here Colonel Pepper left them, and Lane talked to Holt for an hour.

The more he questioned Holt the better he liked him, and yet the more surprised was he at the sordid fact of the boy's inclination toward loose living.

There was something perhaps that Holt would not confess.

His health had been impaired in the service, but not seriously.