lding.

Once the soft-voiced young man who had put out his hand in his defence
the day of his arrival at the stockade, and had afterward called him
"friend," the only time he had ever heard the word addressed to
himself, once he came over where Jim sat cleaning the warden's boots,
and motioned him.

Jim shook his head, and went on blacking the big boots. But when the
young convict drew nearer, and tried to take his hand, he drew back,
and struck at him viciously with the blacking brush.

"Git out, will you! And don't come a-fooling with this brush, lest you
want your d--n head broke."

He had seen a guard spying upon them at a half open door in the rear
of the young convict. At Jim's outburst of temper the guard entered.

"Come away from him, Solly," he said, "the surly beast is as like as
not to knock your brains out."

The convict turned to obey, but the glance he got of Jim's face
carried a full explanation. The temper was affected to keep down
suspicion. After that came the punishment at the pump, the merciless
beating, and then, all things proving unavailing, he was put in the
dungeon to have the "truth starved out of him."

After three days he was brought out, faint, pale, ready to die at
every step, but with that same immovable _something_ shining in his
eyes, and his lips still set in the old way that he had of his mother.

His hands were manacled, and an iron chain clanked about his feet as
he dragged them wearily one after the other. For three days he had
tasted no food, except a rat that he had caught in the dungeon. He ate
it raw, like a dog, and searched eagerly for another. Just as he had
found it, and skinned it with the help of his teeth, the guard peered
through the grating, and seeing what he was doing, entered, and put
handcuffs upon him, after first removing the raw flesh to a point
where he could see, but not touch it. And there it lay, torturing him
while he starved. And there it lay until it became carrion, and
tortured him again. And then they had dragged him out again, out under
the blue sky, where the trees--the old sweet-smelling pines--were
waving their purple plumes upon the distant mountains, and the wild
grape filled the air with perfume, and the wild roses were pink as
childhood's sweet, young dreams, and over all was bended the blue
heaven. And heaven spread before him, heaven; behind him lay hell,
fifteen years of it less one. And they gave him choice again betwixt
the two. Th