I went back to the fatherly old
chief of police to confess defeat and to notify him that I was leaving
town.

In this interview he made me tell him more about my trial and
conviction, and when I finished he was shaking his head. "There's
something sort o' queer about this pull-down of yours, Weyburn," he
commented. "I gave you my word not to talk unless you went back on me,
and I've kept it. You hain't told anybody else?"

"Not a soul."

"Still, it's been told--not once, but a heap o' times. Have you tried
chasin' it back to its startin' point?"

"Yes; but it is no good. It seems to be in the air."

"Well, it's a dum shame. It looks as if you had somebody houndin' you
out o' sheer spite. Is there anybody back behind that would do that?"

I suppose I was bat-blind; but the suggestion, even when it was added
to the mysterious entanglements that were tripping me at every step,
failed to open my eyes. Truly, Abel Geddis and Abner Withers had used
me ruthlessly as their criminal stop-gap, but since I had paid the
penalty and still bore the criminal odium, I could postulate no
possible reason why they should reach out across the three-year
interval to add cruel persecution to injury.

"No," I said, after a reflective pause. "There are only the two old
men I have named. And now that it is all over, I can see that they
were only shoving me into the breach to save themselves."

He nodded, half-doubtfully, I thought; and then: "You're goin' to try
again somewheres else?"

I replied that there was nothing else to do; whereupon this
white-haired old angel, who seemed so vastly out of place as the head
of even a small city's police department, made an astounding proposal.

"Get your bit of dunnage--I s'pose you hain't got very much, have
you?--and come around here about dark this evenin'. I'll have my buggy
ready and we'll drive over to Altamont, so you can take the train there
instead of here. If there's anybody follerin' you up and blacklistin'
you, maybe that'll throw 'em off the track."

It was a splendid bit of kindness; and when I could swallow the lump it
brought into my throat I accepted joyfully. And as the disappearance
was planned, so it was carried out. In the dusk of the evening the
good old man drove me the ten miles across to the neighboring village,
and after thanking him out of a full heart I boarded a train and began
my wanderings afresh.

VI

A Good Samaritan

After such a d