. Then, with a note of unwonted gentleness in his voice:
"I shouldn't do that if I were you, Jimmie. The man doesn't live who
hasn't, at one time or another, had to dig a hole and bury something
decently out of sight. Whatever you may have done in the past, you're
not going to play marbles with the Hadley-and-Shelton pay-money.
That's about all there is to it. You may take hold to-morrow morning.
Kenniston will stay long enough to show you the ropes."

It was not until after I had left the office shack and was crossing to
the bunk house set apart for the office squad that I remembered Dorgan.
Now, if never before, my duty in his case was plain. It was tempting
Providence to allow the presence in camp of a burglar who was probably
only waiting for his chance to "clean up"; doubly perilous now, indeed,
since in any case of loss my record would be shown up, and Dorgan, if
he had already recognized me as I had him, would not be slow to take
advantage of my vulnerability.

My first impulse was to go straight back to Hadley and tell him,
without the loss of another moment. But there were difficulties in the
way; obstacles which I had not before stopped to consider. If I should
accuse Dorgan, he might retaliate by telling what he knew of me. This
difficulty was brushed aside at once: I judged there was little to fear
from this, in view of what Hadley had just said to me. But there was
another obstacle; the one which had kept me silent from the day I had
first seen Dorgan driving his track-layers. With a crushing sense of
degradation I realized the full force of the motive for silence, as I
had not up to this time. With every fiber of me protesting that I must
be loyal to my employers at any and all costs, that other loyalty, the
tie that binds the branded, proved the stronger. I could not bring
myself to the point of sending Dorgan, guilty as he doubtless was, back
to the living death of the "long-termer." I make no excuses. One
cannot touch pitch and escape defilement in some sort. For three years
I had lived among criminals; and the bond . . . but I have said all
this before.

It may be imagined with what inward tremblings I took on the duties of
the new job the next day. Kenniston, eager to be gone on his
prospecting tour, gave me only a short forenoon over the pay-rolls; but
as to this, the routine was simple enough. It was what he said at
parting that gave me the greatest concern.

"You have to go to