this hour. At night, in the darkness of his cell,
imagination had projected picture after picture of it, vivid, colorful,
set to music. But his parole had come too late. The years had taken
their toll of him. The shadow of the prison had left its chill, had done
something to him that had made him a different David Sanders from the boy
who had entered. He wondered if he would ever learn to laugh again, if he
would ever run to meet life eagerly as that other David Sanders had a
thousand years ago.

He followed the road down to the little station and took a through train
that came puffing out of the Royal Gorge on its way to the plains.
Through the crowd at the Denver depot he passed into the city, moving
up Seventeenth Street without definite aim or purpose. His parole had
come unexpectedly, so that none of his friends could meet him even if
they had wanted to do so. He was glad of this. He preferred to be alone,
especially during these first days of freedom. It was his intention to go
back to Malapi, to the country he knew and loved, but he wished to pick
up a job in the city for a month or two until he had settled into a frame
of mind in which liberty had become a habit.

Early next morning he began his search for work. It carried him to a
lumber yard adjoining the railroad yards.

"We need a night watchman," the superintendent said. "Where'd you work
last?"

"At Canon City."

The lumberman looked at him quickly, a question in his glance.

"Yes," Dave went on doggedly. "In the penitentiary."

A moment's awkward embarrassment ensued.

"What were you in for?"

"Killing a man."

"Too bad. I'm afraid--"

"He had stolen my horse and I was trying to get it back. I had no
intention of hitting him when I fired."

"I'd take you in a minute so far as I'm concerned personally, but our
board of directors--afraid they wouldn't like it. That's one trouble in
working for a corporation."

Sanders turned away. The superintendent hesitated, then called after him.

"If you're up against it and need a dollar--"

"Thanks. I don't. I'm looking for work, not charity," the applicant said
stiffly.

Wherever he went it was the same. As soon as he mentioned the prison,
doors of opportunity closed to him. Nobody wanted to employ a man
tarred with that pitch. It did not matter why he had gone, under what
provocation he had erred. The thing that damned him was that he had been
there. It was a taint, a corrosion.

He could hav