e! It's up to yo' an' yer wigglin'
powers, when yo' get free. The emptier yer belly is, the more room
ye'll have fer wiggling. God bless yer! yer dog-gone hound! Bless yer
an'--curse yer! I'm off--with the doney-gal!"

And off he was--he and his cruel but gay laugh.

There was no fire in the cave-like place; no light but the indirect
moonlight which slanted through the opening. It was death or wiggle for
Jed Martin--so he wiggled!

In the meantime, Burke headed for Jim White's. He meant to play a high
game there--to fling himself on White's mercy--appeal to the liking he
knew the sheriff had for him--confess his love for Nella-Rose--make his
promise for future redemption and then go, scot-free, to claim the girl
who had declared he might speak when once again he dared walk upright
among his fellows. So Lawson planned and went bravely to the doing of
it.

CHAPTER IX

At Washington, Truedale telegraphed to Brace Kendall. He felt, as he
drew nearer and nearer to the old haunts, like a stranger, and a blind,
groping one at that. The noises of the city disturbed and confused him;
the crowds irritated him. When he remembered the few weeks that lay
between the present and the days when he was part and parcel of this
so-called life, he experienced a sensation of having died and been
compelled to return to earth to finish some business carelessly
overlooked. He meant to rectify the omission as soon as possible and get
back to the safety and peace of the hills. How different it all would be
with settled ideas, definite work, and Nella-Rose!

While waiting for his train in the Washington station he was startled to
find that, of a sudden, he was adrift between the Old and the New. If he
repudiated the past, the future as sternly repudiated him. He could not
reconcile his love and desire with his identity. Somehow the man he had
left, when he went South, appeared now to have been waiting for him on
his return, and while his plans, nicely arranged, seemed feasible the
actual readjustment struck him as lurid and impossible. The fact was
that his experience of life in Pine Cone made him now shrink from
contact with the outside world as one of its loyal natives might have
done. It could no more survive in the garish light of a city day than
little Nella-Rose could have. That conclusion reached, Truedale was
comforted. He could not lure his recent past to this environment, but so
long as it lay safe and ready to welcome hi