rom them, up here in the mountains, but I can't get
out. I won't go back to that hell they call prison though--I won't." There
was no mistaking his desperate purpose.

James Rutlidge thought of that quick movement toward the edge of the trail
and the rocky depth below. "You don't seem such a bad sort, at heart," he
said invitingly.

"I'm not," returned the other, "I've been a fool--miserably weak fool--but
I've had my lesson--only--I have had it too late."

While the man was speaking, James Rutlidge was thinking quickly. As he had
been moved, at first, by a spirit of compassion to give temporary
assistance to the poor hunted creature, he was now prompted to offer more
lasting help--providing, of course, that he could do so without too great
a risk to his own convenience. The convict's hopeless condition, his
despairing purpose, and his evident wish to live free from the past, all
combined to arouse in the other a desire to aid him. But while that truly
benevolent inclination was, in his consciousness, unmarred with sinister
motive of any sort; still, deeper than the impulse for good in James
Rutlidge's nature lay those dominant instincts and passions that were his
by inheritance and training. The brutal desire, the mood and purpose that
had brought him to that spot where with the aid of his glass he could
watch Sibyl Andres, were not denied by his impulse to kindly service.
Under all his thinking, as he considered how he could help the convict to
a better life, there was the shadowy suggestion of a possible situation
where a man like the one before him--wholly in his power as this man would
be--might be of use to him in furthering his own purpose--the purpose that
had brought about their meeting.

Studying the object of his pity, he said slowly, "I suppose the most of us
are as deserving of punishment as the majority of those who actually get
it. One way or another, we are all trying to escape the penalty for our
wrong-doing. What if I should help you out--make it possible for you to
live like other men who are safe from the law? What would you do if I were
to help you to your freedom?"

The hunted man became incoherent in his pleading for a chance to prove the
sincerity of his wish to live an orderly, respectable, and honest life.

"You have a safe hiding place here in the mountains?" asked Rutlidge.

"Yes; a little hut, hidden in a deep gorge, over on the Cold Water. I
could live there a year if I had supplies."