had sounded so exaggerated at
first, was true; and he was a hard and selfish man. Up to now he'd
excused himself on the score of his superior sensitiveness and
ideality. Probably it was this same error which Pere Antoine, in
gentler manner, had tried to point out, when he said, "You will never
help yourself, or the world, by merely being sad. No man ever has. It
is because of your flight from sadness that you have met with all your
dangers. All your life you have spent in striving to escape from
things which are sad." His thoughts travelled back to those earlier
days, when he'd poured out his troubles to Spurling, and told him all
about himself; and always with the assurance that he would be
understood and would gain sympathy. John Granger as he had been then,
now seemed like a complaining child to himself. He was certain that,
were he to be met by that old self to-day, he would have no patience
with him. But Spurling had had patience.

So, when all was said and done, he must consider himself a pretty
worthless fellow; and, after all, Spurling, despite his blood-stained
hands, was probably the better man.

"Why Spurling failed to become a parson"--a strange topic for thought
and conversation this, on the Last Chance River at nightfall!

But Spurling was speaking again, timidly and half to himself. "Suppose
God should brand a mark on our foreheads for every crime which we have
perpetrated, I wonder what kind of beasts we should appear to one
another then?"

Turning his head, in order that his face might not be seen, Granger
replied, "Much the same kind of beasts, I suspect, as we appear to one
another now." Then, speaking more hurriedly, "It wasn't to talk of
these things, and to ask me that question, that you required me to
come with you to some place where we might be by ourselves. Tell me,
what is it that you want me to do for you? You were good to me once,
and I'm willing to help you in any way that is honourable, and that
isn't too dangerous."

Spurling laughed shortly, and said, "It isn't your help that I'm
asking; it's you that I'm trying to help. Here, look at that." He
passed something to him. "I didn't act squarely by you in the
Klondike, and I want to make up for it now. When we made that strike
in Drunkman's Shallows, the success of it turned my head; even then,
if you'd not been so impatient, I think I should have come to myself
and have behaved decently. You put my back up with your suspicions,
and