is no good--I spit at him."

The Governor nodded, and, despite the Sheriff's protest, they spoke in
French, Grassette with his eyes intently fixed on the other, eagerly
listening.

"I have come," said the Governor, "to say to you, Grassette, that you
have still a chance of life."

He paused, and Grassette's face took on a look of bewilderment and vague
anxiety. A chance of life--what did it mean?

"Reprieve?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

The Governor shook his head. "Not yet; but there is a chance. Something
has happened. A man's life is in danger, or it may be he is dead; but
more likely he is alive. You took a life; perhaps you can save one now.
Keeley's Gulch--the mine there."

"They have found it--gold?" asked Grassette, his eyes staring. He was
forgetting for a moment where and what he was.

"He went to find it, the man whose life is in danger. He had heard from
a trapper who had been a miner once. While he was there, a landslip
came, and the opening to the mine was closed up--"

"There were two ways in. Which one did he take?" cried Grassette.

"The only one he could take, the only one he or anyone else knew. You
know the other way in--you only, they say."

"I found it--the easier, quick way in; a year ago I found it."

"Was it near the other entrance?" Grassette shook his head. "A mile
away."

"If the man is alive--and we think he is--you are the only person that
can save him. I have telegraphed the Government. They do not promise,
but they will reprieve, and save your life, if you find the man."

"Alive or dead?"

"Alive or dead, for the act would be the same. I have an order to take
you to the Gulch, if you will go; and I am sure that you will have your
life, if you do it. I will promise--ah yes, Grassette, but it shall be
so! Public opinion will demand it. You will do it?"

"To go free--altogether?"

"Well, but if your life is saved, Grassette?"

The dark face flushed, then grew almost repulsive again in its
sullenness.

"Life--and this, in prison, shut in year after year. To do always what
some one else wills, to be a slave to a warder. To have men like
that over me that have been a boss of men--wasn't it that drove me to
kill?--to be treated like dirt. And to go on with this, while outside
there is free life, and to go where you will at your own price-no! What
do I care for life! What is it to me! To live like this--ah, I would
break my head against these stone walls, I would choke my