a few months. He's been
shooting and prospecting; but he's a better shooter than prospector.
He's a stranger; that's why all the folks out here want to save him if
it's possible. It's pretty hard dying in a strange land far away from
all that's yours. Maybe he's got a wife waiting for him over there."

"Nom de Dieu!" said Grassette with suppressed malice, under his breath.

"Maybe there's a wife waiting for him, and there's her to think of. The
West's hospitable, and this thing has taken hold of it; the West wants
to save this stranger, and it's waiting for you, Grassette, to do its
work for it, you being the only man that can do it, the only one
that knows the other secret way into Keeley's Gulch. Speak right out,
Grassette. It's your chance for life. Speak out quick."

The last three words were uttered in the old slave-driving tone, though
the earlier part of the speech had been delivered oracularly, and had
brought again to Grassette's eyes the reddish, sullen look which had
made them, a little while before, like those of some wounded, angered
animal at bay; but it vanished slowly, and there was silence for a
moment. The Sheriff's words had left no vestige of doubt in Grassette's
mind. This Bignold was the man who had taken Marcile away, first to the
English province, then into the States, where he had lost track of them,
then over to England. Marcile--where was Marcile now?

In Keeley's Gulch was the man who could tell him, the man who had ruined
his home and his life. Dead or alive, he was in Keeley's Gulch, the man
who knew where Marcile was; and if he knew where Marcile was, and if she
was alive, and he was outside these prison walls, what would he do to
her? And if he was outside these prison walls, and in the Gulch, and the
man was there alive before him, what would he do?

Outside these prison walls-to be out there in the sun, where life would
be easier to give up, if it had to be given up! An hour ago he had been
drifting on a sea of apathy, and had had his fill of life. An hour ago
he had had but one desire, and that was to die fighting, and he had even
pictured to himself a struggle in this narrow cell where he would compel
them to kill him, and so in any case let him escape the rope. Now he was
suddenly brought face to face with the great central issue of his
life, and the end, whatever that end might be, could not be the same in
meaning, though it might be the same concretely. If he elected to let
th