law that holds the stars in their places.
You'll see little Jack agin as sho' as God lives an' holds the worl'
in His hand."

The outlaw sat mute and motionless, and a great light of joy swept
over his face.

"By God's help I'll do it"--and he bowed his head in prayer--the
first he had uttered since he was a boy.

It was wonderful to see the happy and reconciled change when he arose
and tenderly lifted the dead child in his arms. His face was
transformed with a peace the old man had never seen before in any
human being.

Strong men are always strong--in crime--in sin. When they reform it
is the reformation of strength. Such a change came over Jack Bracken,
the outlaw.

He carried his dead child to the next room: "I've got his grave
already chiseled out of the rocks. I'll bury him here--right under
the columns he called Mary and little Jesus, that he loved to talk of
so much."

"It's fitten"--said the old man tenderly--"it's fitten an' beautiful.
The fust burial we know of in the Bible is where Abraham bought the
cave of Machpelah for to bury Sarah, his wife. And as Abraham bought
it of Ephron, the Hittite, and offered it to Abraham for to bury his
dead out of his sight, so I give this cave to you, Jack Bracken,
forever to be the restin' place of little Jack."

And so, tenderly and with many kisses did they bury little Jack,
sinless and innocent, deep in the pure white rock, covered as he was
with purity and looking ever upwards toward the statue above, wherein
Nature's chisel had carved out a Madonna and her child.

CHAPTER XII

JACK BRACKEN

Jack Bracken was comfortably fixed in his underground home. There was
every comfort for living. It was warm in winter and cool in summer,
and in another apartment adjoining his living room was what he called
a kitchen in which a spring of pure water, trickling down from rock
to rock, formed in a natural basin of whitest rock below.

"Jack," said the old man, "won't you tell me about yo'self an' how
you ever got down to this? I knowed you as a boy, up to the time you
went into the army, an' if I do say it to yo' face, you were a brave
hon'rble boy that never forgot a frien' nor--"

"A foe," put in Jack quickly. "Bishop, if I cu'd only forgive my
foes--that's been the ruin of me."

The old man was thoughtful a while: "Jack, that's a terrible thing in
the human heart--unforgiveness. It's to life what a drought is to
Nature--an' it spiles mo' people than any