wet-eyed, sympathetic and earnest; the
other, gaunt, indignant and breathless as he gasped out his story with
the hunger of one to whom sympathy was a rediscovered friend.

"Where was I at?" he asked. "Ah, yes!

"The Governor's dirty-worker wouldn't listen when I tried to explain.
He ordered me back.

"At work in the office next day, I took advantage of a warder's
slackness and broke clear away.

"I didn't care what happened then. I was crazed. An old lady in a
cottage--God bless her!--fed me and gave me these clothes--her son's
castaways--and three dollars; all the money she had.

"I walked twenty miles without stop or let-up. After that I slept
during the day and walked at night. Three days after my breakaway, I
got on to a freight train and stole a ride as far as Sicamous. I slept
overnight in a barn there. Next morning I tried to bribe a boy to get
me some food at the grocery store. I gave him a dollar. He never came
back. I heard some men talking at the door of the barn about a
suspicious character who had been seen skulking about. That decided
me. I got out when night came and slipped under an empty fruit car
which was being shunted on the siding. I got off yesterday, slipping
away between a little village up the line and here. The engineer got
his eye on me and stopped the train. He let some men off: they were
two detectives, I think. They had been riding in the caboose. They
came after me. I fell exhausted somewhere in the bush. When I came to
it was broad daylight and the men were gone."

He looked up at Eileen suddenly.

"There isn't much more. Early this morning I managed to get into a
barn by the railway tracks. I got in through a skylight in the roof. I
went to sleep among the straw there. Soon after, the sound of a key in
the padlock outside woke me. I scrambled up and through the skylight
again, and away. There were three men--one with a rifle. They hunted
me, finding me and losing me several times. The devil with the rifle
got a line on me down the hill a short time ago.

"When I got to your door I was all in." He smiled. "You're a real
sport. You didn't give me away."

He got up and threw out his hands. "Oh, what's the good anyway! All
jailbirds tell the tale and shout their innocence."

Eileen's heart was moved. Tears welled up in her eyes. She was at a
loss to know what to do or say.

As the man turned from her, his elbow struck something hanging on the
wall. He caught at it quickly as