Thinking, for the most part, of how dull and purposeless life was, and wondering why the world was made, or the people in it--since nobody was happy, and few even pretended to be.

Did God really make the world, and man, just to play with--for a pastime?
Then why bother about feeling ashamed for anything one did that was contrary to God's laws?
Why be puffed up with pride for keeping one or two of them unbroken--like Cash, for instance.

Just because Cash never drank or played cards, what right had he to charge the whole atmosphere of the cabin with his contempt and his disapproval of Bud, who chose to do both?
On the other hand, why did he choose a spree as a relief from his particular bunch of ghosts?
Trading one misery for another was all you could call it.

Doing exactly the things that Marie's mother had predicted he would do, committing the very sins that Marie was always a little afraid he would commit--there must be some sort of twisted revenge in that, he thought, but for the life of him he could not quite see any real, permanent satisfaction in it--especially since Marie and her mother would never get to hear of it.
For that matter, he was not so sure that they would not get to hear.
He remembered meeting, just on the first edge of his spree, one Joe De Barr, a cigar salesman whom he had known in San Jose.

Joe knew Marie--in fact, Joe had paid her a little attention before Bud came into her life.
Joe had been in Alpine between trains, taking orders for goods from the two saloons and the hotel.