to the damp straw. And while the huge bonfire burned, and he poked
long poles into it to give it air to blaze by, he made excuse of the
great heat to strip of the long rough overcoat that had been given
him to wear through the hard months of the winter. By this time the
warder had fallen back from the scorching flames, and Jason, watching
his chance, stole away under cover of deep whorls of smoke, and got
back into the log cabin unobserved.

He found the place empty; the man known to him as A 25 was not
anywhere to be seen. But finding his sleeping bunk--a bare slab
resembling a butcher's board--he stretched his coat over it where the
bed had been, and then fled away like a guilty thing.

When the great fire had burned low the warder returned, and said,
"Quick there; put on your coat and let's be off."

At that Jason pretended to look about him in dismay.

"It's gone," he said, in a tone of astonishment.

"Gone? What? Have you burnt it up with the beds?" cried the warder.

"Maybe so," said Jason, meekly.

"Fool," cried the warder; "but it's your loss. Now you'll have to go
in your sheepskin jacket, snow or shine."

With a cold smile about the corners of his mouth, Jason bent his head
and went on ahead of his warder.

If the Captain of the Mines had been left to himself he might have
been a just and even a merciful man, but he was badgered by inhuman
orders from Jorgen Jorgensen at Reykjavik, and one by one the common
privileges of his prisoners were withdrawn. As a result of his
treatment, the prisoners besieged him with petitions as often as he
crossed their path. The loudest to complain and the most rebellious
against petty tyranny was Michael Sunlocks; the humblest, the
meekest, the most silent under cruel persecution was Red Jason. The
one seemed aflame with indignation; the other appeared destitute of
all manly spirit.

"That man might be dangerous to the Government yet," thought the
Captain, after one of his stormy scenes with Michael Sunlocks. "That
man's heart is dead within him," he thought again, as he watched Red
Jason working as he always worked, slowly, listlessly, and as if
tired out and longing for the night.

The Captain's humanity at length prevailed over his Governor's rigor,
and he developed a form of penal servitude among the prisoners which
he called the Free Command. This was a plan whereby the men whose
behavior had been good were allowed the partial liberty of living
outside the sto