ess determination.

Now he was regarding me in a manner entirely benevolent.

"Feel better, son? Well, go ahead an' tell me as much of your story as
you want to."

I gave an account of all that had happened to me since I had set foot
on the new land.

"Huh!" he ejaculated when I had finished. "That's the worst of your
old-country boys. You haven't got the get-up an' nerve to rustle a job.
You go to a boss an' tell him: 'You've no experience, but you'll do your
best.' An American boy says: 'I can do anything. Give me the job an'
I'll just show you.' Who's goin' to be hired? Well, I think I can get
you a job helpin' a gardener out Alameda way."

I expressed my gratitude.

"That's all right," he said; "I'm glad by the grace of God I've been the
means of givin' you a hand-up. Better come to my room an' stop with me
till somethin' turns up. I'm goin' North in three days."

I asked if he was going to the Yukon.

"Yes, I'm goin' to join this crazy rush to the Klondike. I've been
minin' for twenty years, Arizona, Colorado, all over, an' now I am
a-goin' to see if the North hasn't got a stake for me."

Up in his room he told me of his life.

"I'm saved by the grace of God, but I've been a Bad Man. I've been
everything from a city marshal to boss gambler. I have gone heeled for
two years, thinking to get my pass to Hell at any moment."

"Ever killed any one?" I queried.

He was beginning to pace up and down the room.

"Glory to God, I haven't, but I've shot.... There was a time when I
could draw a gun an' drive a nail in the wall. I was quick, but there
was lots that could give me cards and spades. Quiet men, too, you would
never think it of 'em. The quiet ones was the worst. Meek, friendly,
decent men, to see them drinkin' at a bar, but they didn't know Fear,
an' every one of 'em had a dozen notches on his gun. I know lots of
them, chummed with them, an' princes they were, the finest in the land,
would give the shirts off their backs for a friend. You'd like them--but
Lord be praised, I'm a saved man."

I was deeply interested.

"I know I'm talking as I shouldn't. It's all over now, an' I've seen the
evil of my ways, but I've got to talk once in a while. I'm Jim Hubbard,
known as 'Salvation Jim,' an' I know minin' from Genesis to Revelation.
Once I used to gamble an' drink the limit. One morning I got up from the
card-table after sitting there thirty-six hours. I'd lost five thousand
dollars. I knew they'd han