y glance.

At last, for a little space, he remained silent; then, as if compelled
by some increasing magic in his hearer, he burst forth:

"I'm not here entirely by my own fault--I mean my own choice. A man is a
product of his environment, you know that, and mine made me idle,
wasteful. Drink got me--drink made me mad--and so--and so--here I am
struggling to win back a fortune. Once I gambled--on the wheel; now I am
gambling with nature on the green of these mountain slopes; but I'll
win--I have already won--and soon I shall sell and go back to the great
cities."

Again his will curbed his treacherous tongue, and, walking to the
doorway, he stood for a moment, looking out; then he fiercely snarled:

"Oh, God, how I hate it all--how I hate myself! I am going mad with this
life! The squeak of these shadowy conies, the twitter of these unseen
little birds, go on day by day. They'll drive me mad! If you had not
come to-night I could not have slept--I would have gone to the mill, and
that means drink to me--drink and oblivion. You came and saved me. I
feared you--hated you then; now I bless you."

Once more he seemed to answer an unspoken query:

"I have no people. My mother is dead, my father has disowned me--he does
not even know I am alive. I'm the black devil of the family--but I shall
go back--"

His face was working with passion, and though he took a seat opposite
his guest, his hands continued to flutter aimlessly and his head moved
restlessly from side to side.

"I don't know why I am telling all this to you," he went on after a
pause. "I reckon it's because of the weakness of the thirst that is
coming over me. Some time I'll go down to those hell-holes at the mills
and never come back--the stuff they sell to me is destructive as
fire--it is poison! You're a man of substance, I can see that--you're no
hobo like most of the fellows out here--that's why I'm talking to you.
You remind me of some one I know. There's something familiar in your
eyes."

The man with the beard struck the ashes from his pipe and began scraping
it. "There is always a woman in these cases," he critically remarked.

The miner took this simple statement as a challenging question. His
excitement visibly increased, but he did not at once reply. He talked on
aimlessly, incoherently, struggling like a small animal in a torrent. He
rose at last, and as he stood in the doorway, breathing deeply, his face
livid in the sunset light, the muscl