d, neither affirming nor denying. The free lunch had come
and I was falling upon it like a famished wolf. I hadn't a penny in my
pockets, and the bread and meat stood for breakfast, dinner and supper
combined.

Kellow swallowed his whiskey at a gulp and stood the empty glass bottom
upward on the table.

"Been trying the honest lay, I suppose--handing in your name and number
wherever you went?" he suggested.

I nodded, adding that there was nothing else to be done, as I saw it.

He laughed scornfully. "A minute ago I said you were a fool, but
you're worse than that--you're an infant! Why, good hell, Weyburn,
there are a dozen ways to beat the parole game! Look at me: I'm here,
ain't I? And the warden knows all about it, does he? Not on your
life! Every four weeks he gets a letter from me telling him what a
fine time I'm having on Dad's farm down in Wayne, and how I'm all to
the good and thanking him every day for all he did for me. What?"

"Somebody mails those letters for you in Wayne?" I asked.

"Sure! And a little split for the marshal in the nearest town does the
rest. Bimeby, when I've collected enough of the debt I spoke of, I'll
shake the dust and disappear."

"They'll find you and bring you back."

"Not without a fine-tooth comb, they won't. This old world is plenty
good and wide when you learn how to use it."

"I suppose I haven't learned yet; and I don't want to learn--in your
way, Kellow."

Again he gave me the sneering laugh.

"You may as well begin, and have it over with. It's all the same to
you, now, whether you cracked the bank or didn't. You may think you
can live square and live the prison-smell down, but you can't. It'll
stick to you like your skin. Wherever you go, you'll be a marked man."

Though I had devoured the bar hand-out to the final crumb, I was still
half-famished; and hunger is but a poor ally in any battle. What he
was saying was truth of the truth, so far as the blunt facts were
concerned. Every failure I had made in the six weary months confirmed
it. There was little room in the world of the well-behaved for the man
who was honest enough--or foolish enough--to confess himself an
ex-convict; less still for a man who had been made the object of a
persecuting conspiracy. None the less, I had resolution, or obstinacy,
enough to say:

"I don't believe it."

"That's what makes me say you're a fool!" he snapped back. "You've got
the name, and you may as we