dn't puff after climbing a
hill. Twenty years make a big difference, sometimes."

"Yes, sometimes," agreed Fingers in a wheezy whisper.

"Twenty years ago you were--a fighter."

It seemed to Kent that a deeper color came into Dirty Fingers' pale
eyes in the few seconds that followed these words.

"A fighter," he repeated. "Most men were fighters in those days of the
gold rushes, weren't they, Fingers? I've heard a lot of the old stories
about them in my wanderings, and some of them have made me thrill. They
weren't afraid to die. And most of them were pretty white when it came
to a show-down. You were one of them, Fingers. I heard the story one
Winter far north. I've kept it to myself, because I've sort of had the
idea that you didn't want people to know or you would have told it
yourself. That's why I wanted you to come to see me, Fingers. You know
the situation. It's either the noose or iron bars for me. Naturally one
would seek for assistance among those who have been his friends. But I
do not, with the exception of Father Layonne. Just friendship won't
save me, not the sort of friendship we have today. That's why I sent
for you. Don't think that I am prying into secrets that are sacred to
you, Fingers. God knows I don't mean it that way. But I've got to tell
you of a thing that happened a long time ago, before you can
understand. You haven't forgotten--you will never forget--Ben Tatman?"

As Kent spoke the name, a name which Dirty Fingers had heard no lips
but his own speak aloud in nearly a quarter of a century, a strange and
potent force seemed suddenly to take possession of the forest bencher's
huge and flabby body. It rippled over and through him like an
electrical voltaism, making his body rigid, stiffening what had seemed
to be fat into muscle, tensing his hands until they knotted themselves
slowly into fists. The wheeze went out of his breath, and it was the
voice of another man who answered Kent.

"You have heard--about--Ben Tatman?"

"Yes. I heard it away up in the Porcupine country. They say it happened
twenty years ago or more. This Tatman, so I was told, was a young
fellow green from San Francisco--a bank clerk, I think--who came into
the gold country and brought his wife with him. They were both
chuck-full of courage, and the story was that each worshiped the ground
the other walked on, and that the girl had insisted on being her
husband's comrade in adventure. Of course neither guessed the sort