of conscience for the
hidden grain.

The minister was at the stockade often, cheering, sympathizing, and
always comforting the convicts with the certainty of eternal love, and
the folly of eternal punishment. One day he stumbled upon a man who
was being strapped and prepared for punishment at the pump. His face
was sullen, and there were splotches of blood on his clothes, and he
limped when he attempted to walk. Still there was something in the
old, young face, that neither cruelty nor threats could kill. They
might turn on the icy water, and exhaust themselves with lashing him,
but that stoic determination would not yield. They might _murder_ him,
but from his fixed, dead eyes, _it_ would glare at them, that same
heroic, immovable _something_ that had shone in the staring eyes of
his dead mother.

No visitors were allowed in that part of the prison, so the minister
held back until, fearing the limp figure under the pump would be
beaten to death by the cruel pour of water upon his head, he stepped
forward to interfere.

"In God's name, I beg you stop," he cried, his hand uplifted, his eyes
full of tears. "Your punishment is beastly. What has the fellow done?
Is someone murdered?"

"Someone ought to be," sullenly replied the man at the pump-handle.
"And someone might be if this sneaking rascal was the only hope of
preventing it."

There had been a plot among the convicts to batter down the shaky old
stockade, and break for freedom. They had secured a gun and some
ammunition, where, no one could tell, and the plot had well-nigh
succeeded. The guard on the wall had been killed, three men had
escaped, and the prison bloodhounds were lying in the kennel with
their throats cut.

Already the governor of the State had telegraphed freedom to the
convicts not in the scheme who would give the names of those engaged
in it. Even the leader's name; for _that_ freedom was offered, pardon
unconditional.

Something let fall discovered to the warden that Jim, while not in,
was familiar with the whole history of the insurrection. The offer of
freedom had no further effect upon him than a careless refusal to
comply with the terms set forth. But when force was suggested, he set
his lips in that old way that belonged to his mother, and said
nothing. Three days they gave him to "knock under." But the only
change noticeable during that time was a more decided sullenness, a
look in the cold, gray eyes that meant death rather than yie