set it
to boil on the little fire, thinking that it required more fortitude,
indeed, to live out a sentence such as Reid faced in the open than
behind a lock. Here, the call to be away was always before a man; the
leagues of freedom stretched out before his eyes. It required some
holding in on a man's part to restrain his feet from taking the
untrammeled way to liberty under such conditions, more than he would
have believed Reid capable of, more than he expected him to be equal
to much longer.

Reid came slowly over to where he had left his hat, took it up, and
stood looking at it as if he had found some strange plant or unusual
flower, turning it and regarding it from all sides. It was such
strange behavior that Mackenzie kept his eye on him, believing that
the solitude and discontent had strained his mind.

Presently Reid put the hat on his head, came over to Mackenzie's fire,
and squatted near it on his heels, although the sun was broiling hot
and the flare of the ardent little blaze was scorching to his face. So
he sat, silent as an Indian, looking with fixed eyes at the fire,
while Mackenzie fried his bacon and warmed a can of succotash in the
pan. When Mackenzie began to eat, Reid drew back from the fire to make
another cigarette.

"But will it pay a man," he said ruminatively, as if turning again a
subject long discussed with himself, "to put in three years at this
just to get out of work all the rest of his life? That's all it comes
to, even if I can keep the old man's money from sifting through my
hands like dry sand on a windy day. The question is, will it pay a man
to take the chance?"

Reid did not turn his eyes toward Mackenzie as he argued thus with
himself, nor bring his face about to give his companion a full look
into it. He sat staring across the mighty temptation that lay spread,
league on league before him, his sharp countenance sharper for the
wasting it had borne since Mackenzie saw him last, his chin up, his
neck stretched as if he leaped the barriers of his discontent and rode
away.

"It's a long shot, Mackenzie," he said, turning as he spoke, his face
set in a cast of suffering that brought again to Mackenzie a sweep of
pity which he knew to be a tribute undeserved. "I made a joke about
selling out to you once, Mackenzie; but it isn't a thing a man can
joke about right along."

"I'm glad it was only a joke, Earl."

"Sure it was a joke."

Reid spoke with much of his old lightness, com