dark cell he had hunted graybacks. The hopeless squalor of it at times
had driven him almost mad. As he saw it now, his guilt was of minor
importance. If he had not fired the shot that killed George Doble, that
was merely a chance detail. What counted against him was that his soul
was marked with the taint of the criminal through association and habit
of thought. He could reason with this feeling and temporarily destroy it.
He could drag it into the light and laugh it away. But subconsciously it
persisted as a horror from which he could not escape. A man cannot touch
pitch, even against his own will, and not be defiled.

"You're Keith's hero, you know," the girl told Dave, her face bubbling
to unexpected mirth. "He tries to walk and talk like you. He asks the
queerest questions. To-day I caught him diving at a pillow on the bed.
He was making-believe to be you when you were shot."

Her nearness in the soft, shadowy night shook his self-control. The music
of her voice with its drawling intonations played on his heartstrings.

"Think I'll go now," he said abruptly.

"You must come again," she told him. "Keith wants you to teach him how to
rope. You won't mind, will you?"

The long lashes lifted innocently from the soft deep eyes, which rested
in his for a moment and set clamoring a disturbance in his blood.

"I'll be right busy," he said awkwardly, bluntly.

She drew back within herself. "I'd forgotten how busy you are, Mr.
Sanders. Of course we mustn't impose on you," she said, cold and stiff as
only offended youth can be.

Striding into the night, Dave cursed the fate that had made him what he
was. He had hurt her boorishly by his curt refusal of her friendship. Yet
the heart inside him was a wild river of love.

CHAPTER XXVII

AT THE JACKPOT

The day lasted twenty-four hours in Malapi. As Sanders walked along
Junipero Street, on his way to the downtown corral from Crawford's house,
saloons and gambling-houses advertised their attractions candidly and
noisily. They seemed bursting with raw and vehement life. The strains of
fiddles and the sound of shuffling feet were pierced occasionally by the
whoop of a drunken reveler. Once there rang out the high notes of a
woman's hysterical laughter. Cowponies and packed burros drooped
listlessly at the hitching-rack. Even loaded wagons were waiting to take
the road as soon as the drivers could tear themselves away from the
attractions of keno and a last drin