nging in an alley, and the men
were on the street at the mouth of it six or seven yards away. They were
talking and it must be about him!

He saw them create a light in some manner, and his hands almost slipped
from the rope. Then joy flooded back. They were merely lighting
cigarettes, and, with a few more words to each other, they walked on.
Ned slid slowly down, but when he came to the last knot his strength
gave way and he fell. It seemed to him that he was plunging an
immeasurable distance through depths of space. Then he struck and with
the force of the blow consciousness left him.

When he revived he found himself lying upon a rough stone pavement and
it was still dark. He saw above a narrow cleft of somber sky, and
something cold and trailing lay across his face. He shivered with
repulsion, snatched at it to throw it off, and found that it was his
rope. Then he felt of himself cautiously and fearfully, but found that
no bones were broken. Nor was he bruised to any degree and now he knew
that he could not have fallen more than two or three feet. Perhaps he
had struck first upon the little pack which he had fastened upon his
back. It reminded him that he was shoeless and coatless and undoing the
pack he reclothed himself fully.

He was quite sure that he had not lain there more than a quarter of an
hour. Nothing had happened while he was unconscious. It was a dark
little alley in the rear of the prison, and the buildings on the other
side that abutted upon it were windowless. He walked cautiously to the
mouth of the alley, and looked up and down the street. He saw no one,
and, pulling his cap down over his eyes, he started instinctively toward
the north, because it was to the far north that he wished to go. He was
fully aware that he faced great dangers, almost impossibilities.
Practically nothing was in his favor, save that he spoke excellent
Spanish and also Mexican versions of it.

He went for several hundred yards along the rough and narrow street, and
he began to shiver again. Now it was from cold, which often grows
intense at night in the great valley of Mexico. Nor was his wasted frame
fitted to withstand it. He was assailed also by a fierce hunger. He had
carried self-denial to the utmost limit, and nature was crying out
against him in a voice that must be heard.

He resolved to risk all and obtain food. Another hundred yards and he
saw crouched in an angle of the street an old woman who offered
torti