Trail-Tales of Western Canada

 Old Ken was "down on his luck." For well-nigh fifty years he had "gone the pace" in a district where certain men say glibly, "there's no God west of the Rockies." The old prospector had been, according to those who knew him best, in one of three conditions for some years. He was either "getting drunk, drunk, or sobering up." And yet in spite of his weakness and sin, and in spite of the curses he got, there was no more popular man in the whole camp than Old Ken, although likely he was not conscious of it. One of the miners had once expressed a conviction about Ken that was dangerously popular.