the harvest of the West had been a great one, that the sal- mon fishing had \been larger than ever before, that gold had been found In the Yukon, made difference to Jacques Grassette, for he fwas in the condemned cell of Bindon Jail, liv- ing out those days which pass so swiftly between the verdict of the | Jury and the last slow walk with | the Sheriff. He sat with him back to the stone wall, his hands on his knees, look- HAT the day was beautiful, that | "I not stand up for you," he growled at the Sheriff; "I stand up for him." He jerked his head toward Str Henri Robitaille. This grand Seigneur, ding, and also down in Massachu- | "ith Miepottne oa hove E im setts. That, however, was a differ-|.? those =O) ¥S8 jent thing, which he forgot an hour | Just been seeing over again, and all after; but this was the beginning | his boyhood and young Wanioog Joa of the world for him; for he Knew [118 308 Sac oo Bu oe now, of a sudden, what life was, seeing who the al » what home meant, why "old folks" "Jacques Gi tte!" hy rted, in slaved for their children, and moth- hm » oy > tion, for up | Rent 'away Tn hoe. lggar | EF another mame the mukiere had things; why in' there, in at Mass, so | P®®D tried and sentenced, nor had 2 been estab) --the many were praying for all the people {his Identity tished and thinking only of one. All fn 580 Was so clear, 9 Safer had moment it came--and stayed: and en. Pp ry, to Marcile, that (Very far away! {the Government. They do not prom- only one he or any one else knew. |searc You know the other way in--you they found no answering look there. only, they say." The Governor, then, did not remem- "I found ft--the easier, quick way in; a year ago I found it" "Was it near the other entrance? Grassette shook his head. "A mile away." . 2 "If the man is alive--and we think he fs--you are the only person that can save him. I have telegraphed ise, but they will reprieve, and save your life if you find the man." "Alive or dead?" "Alive or dead, for the act would be the same. I have an order to take you to the Gulch, if you will EE ree Te TI "The only one he could take, the |sette said, harshly, with eyes that hed the Governor's face; but he spoke to her, very night, and he spoke also to her father, Valloir the ferrier, the next morning by lamplight, before he started for the woods. He would not Httle house with dormer windows, |be gainsaid, nor take no for an an- and a steep roof on which the snow (SWer, nor accept,' as a reason for could not lodge in winter time; with | refusal, that she was only sixteen, & narrow stoop in front where one (2nd that he did not know her, for could rest of an evening, the day's | She had been away with a childless work done; the stone-and-earth |aunt since she was three. That she oven near by on the open, where|had fourteen brothers and sisters the bread for a family of twenty |Who had to ba fed and cared for ad was baked; the wooden plough | Not seem to weigh with the ferrier. tipped against the fence, to wait the | That was an affair of le bon Dieu, "fall" cultivation; the big iron cooler |2nd enough would be provided for in which the sap from the maple [them all as heretofore--oné 'would trees was boiled, in the days when | make little difference; and though the snow thawed and spring opened | Jacques was a very good match, the heart of the world; the flash of [considering his prospects and his the sickle and the scythe hard by; | favor with the lumber king, Valloir the flelds of the little, narrow farm | Pad a kind of fear of him, and could running back from the St. Lawrence | NOt easily promise his beloved Mar- like a riband; and, out on the wide |cile, the flower of his flock, to a man stream; the great rafts with their | of whom the priest so strongly dis- riverine ulation floating down to |aPProved. But it was a new sort of Michelin's mill yards. i Jacques Grassette who, that morn- For hours he had sat like this ing, spoke to him with Jie spirliony unmoving, his gnaried red hands ino 8 e Srhiess oe Saw an the clamping each leg as though to hold | Su9denly conceive po hi P! while he 76d; and he stallion, which every man in the pind wed Ye ale a lad, bare. | Perish envied Jacques, won Valloir footed, doing chores, running after a om Josue ot Fi the shaggy, troublesome pony which Marcle would let him catch it when no one cheek else could, and, with only a halter cr on, galloping wildly back to the Well, bagosh, you are a wonder!" farmyard, to be hitched up in the | 58d Jacques' father, when he tol cariole which had once belonged to [him the news, and saw Jacques jump into the carfole and drive away. the old Seigneur. He saw himself as a young man back from "the| Here in prison, this, too, Jacques States," where he had been working | saw--this scene; and then the wed- In the mills, regarded austerely by |ding in the spring, and the tour little Father Roche, who had given | through the parishes for days to- him his first Communion--for, down | gethér, lads and lasses journeying in Massachusetts he had learned to [with them; and afterward the new wear his curly hair plastered down home with a bigger stoop than any on his forehead, smoke bad cigars, |other in the village, with some old, and drink "old Bourbon," to bet and | gnarled crab-apple trees and llac to gamble, and be a figure at horse |bushes, and four years of happiness, races. and a little child that died; and all Then he saw himself, his' money | the time Jacques rising in the esteem all gone, but the luck still with him, | of Michelin the lumber king, and at Mass on the Sunday before going sent on inspections, and to organize to the backwoods lumber camp for |camps; for weeks, sometimes for the winter, as boss of a hundred months, away from the house behind , the lilac bushes--and then the end of a, ith him, and Meu, Hg had « way ey, and it all, sudden and crushing and yn- : redeemable. sette, and he could manage mén, as Michelin, the lumber king himself,| Jacques came back one night and had found in a great river row and {found the house empty. Marcile had strike, when bloodshed seemed cer- [gone to try her luck. with another tain. Even now the ghost of a smile | man. played at his lips as he recalled the That was the end of the upward surprise of the old habitants and of | career of Jacques 'Grassette. He Father Roche when he was chosen went out upon a savage hunt which for this responsible post; for to run brought him no quarry, for the man a great lumber camp well, hundreds and the woman had disappeared as of miles from civilization, where completely as though they had been there is no visible law, no restraints | swallowed by the sea. And here, at of ordinary organized life, and|last, he was waiting for the day where men, for seven months to- when he must settle a bill for a hu- gether, never saw a woman or a man life taken in passiof and rage, ing straight before him. All that met his physical gaze was another stone wall, but with his mind's eye he was looking beyond it into spaces for away, His mind was seeing a "M'sieu!" was the respéétful re- sponse, and Grassette' fingers twitched. "It was my sister's son you killed, Grassette," said the Governor, in a low, strained voice. "Nom de Dieu!* hoarsely. . "I did not know, Grassette," the Governor went on--"I did not know it was you." : "Why did you come, m'sieu?" "Call him 'your Honor,'" said the Sheriff, sharply. , Grassette's face hardened, and his look, turned upon the Sheriff, was savage and forbidden. "I will speak as it please me. Who are you? What do I care? To hang me--that is your busipess; but, for the rest, you spik to me differen'! Who are you? Your father kep' a tavern for sald Grasette, Valloir burning on his thieves, vous savez bien!™ It was true that the Sheriff's father had had no savory reputation in the West. The Governor turned his head away in pain and trouble, for the man's rage was not a thing to see-- and they both came from the little parish of St. Francis, and had passed many an hour together, "Never mind, Grassette," he said, gently. "Call me' what you will You've got no feeling against me; and I can say with truth that I don't want your life for the life you took." Grassette"s breast heaved. "He put me out of my work, the man I child, and ate pork and beans, and His big frame seemed out of place drank white whiskey, was a task of [in the small cell, and the watcher administration as difficult as man- sitting near him, to whom he had aging a small republic new created not addressed a word nor replied to out of violent elements of society. a question since the watching began, But Michelin was right, and the old seemed an insignificant factor in the Seigneur, Sir Henri Robitaille, who scene. Never had a prisoner been was a judge of men, knew he was more self-contained, or rejected right, as did also Hennepin the more completely all those ministra- schoolmaster, whose despair Jacques | tions of humanity which relieve the had been, for he never worked at his | horrible isolation of the condemned lessons as a boy, and yet he absorbed cell. Grassette's Isolation was. com- Latin and mathematics by some sure plete. He lived in a dream, did what but upexplainable process. "Ah, if [little there was to do in a dark ab- you would but work, Jacques, you straction, and sat hour after hour, caurien, I would make a great man | ag he was sitting now, plercing, with of you," Hennepin had said to him [a brain at once benumbed to all more than once; but this had' made [outer things and afire with inward no impression on Jacques. It was things, those realms of memory more to the point that the ground- |which are infinite in a life of forty hogs and black squirrels and pigeons years. were plentiful in Casanac Woods. "Sacre!" he muttered at last, and And so he thought as he stood at [a shiver seemed to pass through him the door of the Church of St. Francis | from head to foot; then an ugly and on that day before gong "out back" | evil oath fell from his lips, which to the lumber camp. He had reached | made his watcher shrink back ap- the summit of greatness--to com- palled, for he also was a Catholic, mand men. That was more than and had been chosen of purpose, in wealth or learning, and as he spoke | the hope that he might have an in- to the old Seigneur going In to Mass, | fluence on this revolted soul. It he still thought so, for the Seigneur's big house and the servants and the Grassette had refused the advances great gardens had no charm for htm. [and ministrations of the little good The horses--that was another thing; | priest, Father Laflamme, who had but there would be plenty of horses [come from the coast of purpose to in the lumber camp; and, on the give him the offices of the Church. whole, he felt himself rather supe- | Silent, obdurate, sullen, he had rior to the old Slégneur, who now [looked the priest straight in the face, was Lieutenant-Governor of the|and had said, in broken English, province in which lay Rindon Jail. |*Non, I pay my bill. Nom de diable! At the door of the Church of St. |r will say my own Mass, light my Francis he had stretched himself up own candle, go my own way. -I have with good-natured pride, for he too much." Ndw, as he sat glooming, after his outbreak of oaths, there came a rat- roused; | tling 'noise at the door, the grinding though Michelin the lumber king did [of a key in the lock, the shooting not know that when he engaged him [of bolts, and a face appeared at the |. as boss, having seen hima only at the [little wicket in the door. Then the his door opened, and the Sheriff stepped inside, accompanied by a white- hatred, stately old man. At sight of this second figure--the Sheriff had come often before, and would come for one more doleful walk with him iE feihid 5 » ] sgig 5: : iz had, however, been of no use, and | kill. He pass the word against me, he hunt me out of the mountains, he call--tete de diable! he call me a name so bad. Everything swim in my head, and I kill him." The Gpvernor made a protesting gesture. "I understand. I am glad his mother was dead. But do you not think how sudden it was? Now here, in the thick of life, then, out there, beyond this world in the dark --in purgatory." The brave old man had accom- plished what every one else, priest, lawyer, Sheriff, and watcher, had failed to do: he had shaken Gras- sette out of his blank isolation and obdurate unrepentance, had touched some chord of recognizable human- ity. . "It is done--bien, I pay for it," re- sponded Grassette, setting his jaw. "It is two deaths for me. Waiting and remembering, and then with the Sheriff there the other--so quick, and all." The Governor looked at him for some "moments without speaking. The Sheriff 'intervened again offi- clously. "His Honor has come to say some- thing important to you," he re- marked, oracularly. "Hold you--does he need a Sheriff to tell him when to spik?" was Gras- Sette's surly comment. Then he turned to the Governor. "Let us speak in French," he said, in patois. "This rope-twister will not under- stan'. He is no good--I spit at him!" ' The Governor nodded, and, despite the Sheriff's protest, they spoke in French, Grassette With his eyes in- tently fixed on the other, eagerly listening. 2 "I have come," said the Governor, "to say to you, Grassette, "that you still have a chance of life." "Repri-ve?" he asked, In a hoarse voice. The Governor shook his head. "Not yet; but there is a chance. Something 'has happened. A man's life is in danger, or it may be he is dead; but more likely he is alive. You took a life; perhaps you can save one now. Keeley's Guich, the mine there!" . "They have found it--gold?" asked £0; and I am sure that you will have your life if you do it. 1 will promise --ah, yes, Grassette, but it shall be so! Public opinion will demand it. You will do it?" "To go free--altogether?" "Well, but if your life is saved, Grassette?" year after year! To do always what some one else wills, to be a slave to To have men like that over me that have been a boss of men--wasn't it' that drove me to kill>--to be treated like dirt! And to go on with this, while outside there is free life, and to go where you will at your own price--no! What do I care for life? What is it to me! To live like this--ah I would break my head against these stone walls, I would choke myself with my own hands! If I stayed here, I would kill again--I would kill --kill!* "Then to go free altogether--that would be the wish of all the world, if you save this man's life, if it can be saved. Will you not take the chance? We all have to die some time or other, Grassette, some Sooner, some later; and when you £0, will you not want to take to God in your hands a life saved for a life taken? Have you .frogotten God, Grassette? We used to remember Him In the Church of St. Francis down there at home." Presently he said In a low" voice: "To be free altogether! . , What is his name? Who is he?" "His name is Bignold," the Gov- + ernor answered. He turned to the Sheriff inquiringly. . "That is it, is it not?" he asked, in English, again. "James Tarran Bignold," answered the Sheriff. The effect of these .words upon Grassette was remarkable. His body appeared to stiffen, his face became rigid, he stared at the Governor blankly, appalled; the color left his face, and his mouth opened with a curious and revolting grimace. The others drew back, startled, and watched him. "Sang de Dieu!™ he murmured at last, with a sudden gesture of misery and rage. Then the Governor understood: he remembered that the name just en by the Sheriff and himself was thé name of the Englishman who had carried off Grassette's wife years ago. He stepped forward and was about to speak, but He would leave it all to Gras- : he would not let the Sheriff the truth, unless Grassette himself disclosed the situation. He looked at Grassette with a look of "Life--and this, in prison, shut in 80 long as you kick with the ground, and--" The Governor hastily intervened upon the Sheriff's brutal remarks. bodily bulk, he had more talents than are generally given. If his brain had been slower, his hand also would have been slower to strike. charged with hate these many years, and since the day he had been de- Serted it had ceased to control hi --------_-- y GIL Bogtfiieiee lth THE fsid cE tet eihEiEe : fs i} li aH vy Ef ried : 5 do, Grassette?™ he last, in a low voice and with forward to him. "Will you not help to clear your conscience by thing? You don't want But his intelligence had been sur- Try again. acti -a ai and reckl wilfulness had governed it. But now, after the first shock and stupe- faction, it seemed to go back to where it was before Marefle went from him, gather up the force and intelligence it had then, and come forward again to this supreme mo- ment, with all that life's harsh ex- periences had done for it, with the education that misery and misdoing give. Revolutions are often the wok of instants, not years, and the crucial test and problem by which Grassette was now faced had lifted him into a new atmosphere, with a new capacity alive in him. A mo- ment ago his eyes had been biocod- shot and swimming with hatred and passion; now they grew, almost sud- denly, hard and lurking and quiet, with a strange, penetrating force and inquiry in them. "Bignold--where does he come from? What is he?" he asked the Sherift, "He is an Englishman; he's only octal; amon. been out here a few months. He's been shooting and prospecting; but he's a better shooter than a pros- pector. He's a stranger; that's why all the folks out here want to save him if it's possible. It's hard dying «in a strange Ind A away from all that's yours. Maybe he's got a wife waiting for him over there." "Nom de Dieu!™ said "Maybe there's a wife waiting for him, and there's her to think of. The West's hospitable, and this thing has taken hold of it; the West wants to save this stranger, and it's waiting for you, Grassette, to do its Work for it, yBu being. the only man that can do it, the only ome that knows his [the other secret way into Keeley's Gulch. Speak right out Grassette. It's your chance for life. Speak out quick." -- The last three words were uttered in the old slave-driving tone, though . |the earlier part of the speech had , bis blood had run coolly, his days had been blessed by an urbane fate; such Scenes as this were but a spectacle to him: there was no answering chord of human suffering in his own breast to make realize what Grassette was undergoing now: but he had read widely, he had been an What would Grassette do? Tt was a problem which had no precedent, the solution would be a revela- 5 L 1 EEF 15: ! been delivered £ § tiEdk i pert silently oe ; : : i nold knew. Alive or dead? Only Bignold knew. "Bien, I will do it, m'slerr™ he said to the Governor, "I am to go alone--eh?" The Sheriff shook his head. "No, two warders will go with you--and myself." A strange look passed over Gras- sette's face. "Bon, I will so." "Then there Is, of course, the doo- tor," sald the Sheriff. » answered the Sheriff, and made a motion to the warder to open the door of the cell. "By sundown!" Grassette sald, and he turned with a determined gesture to leave the cell. At the gate of the prison a fresh, sweet air caught his face. Invol- untarily he drew in a great draught of it, and his eyes seemed to gaze out, almost wonderingly, over the grass and the trees to the boundless horizon. Then he became aware of the shouts of the crowd--shouts of This same crowd had ted him with shouts of execra- tion when he had left the court- house after his wentence. He stood still for moment and looked at them, as it were only half compre- hending that they Were cheering him now, At voices were saying, "Bravo, tte! Save him, and we'll save you." Cheer upon cheer, but he took no notice. He walked like one in a dream--a long, strong step. He turned neither to left nor right, not even when the friendly voice of one who had worked with him bade him "cheer up and do the trick. He was busy working out a problem which no one but himself could solve. s | elled lis. living with a past which had been everlasting distant, and had now be- 'come a vivid and buffeting present. He returned no answers to the ques- tions addressed to him and would not talk, save when for 2 little while they dismounted from their horses and sat under the shade of a great ash tree for a few moments and snatched a mouthful of luncheon. Then he spoke a little and asked some questions, but lapsed into a moody silence afterward. His life through a flery crucible. In all the years that Had gone he had had an ungovernable desire to kill both Big- nold and Marcle if he ever met them --=a primitive, savage desire to blot them out of life and being. His fin- gers had ached for Marcile's neck, that neck in which he had lain his face so often In the transient, unfor- gettable days of their happiness, It she was alive now! --if she was still alive! . Her story was hidden thers in Keeley's Gulch with Bignold, and he was galloping hard to reach his foe. As he went, by some strange al- Hl el i fg i : i feiss beauty, no lure for In. splendor of it all he had only walting, however hopelessly, for the day when he should see Marcile and the man who had taken her from him. And yet now, under the degra- dation of his crime and its penalty, and the unmanning influence of be- Ing the helpless victime of the iron power of the law, rigid, ugly, and demoralizing--now with the solution of his lite's great problem here be- fore him in the hills, with the man for, whom he had waited so long caverned in the earth but a hand- reach away, as it were, his wrongs had taken a new manifestation in him, and the thing that kept crying out in him every moment was, Where is Marcile? . It was four o'clock when they reached the pass which only -Gras- sette knew, the secret way into the Gulch. There was two hours' walk- ing through the thick, primeval closing a ravine where the rocks either side nearly met overhead, Heére Grassette sette was flat on the ground, his ear to the earth. Suddenly he got to his feet, his face set, his eyes glittering. "He is there beyon'--I hear him," he sald, pointing farther down the Gulch. "Water--he is near it~ "We heard nothing" sald the Sheriff--""not a sound." "I hear ver' good. He is alive-- I hear him--sgo," responded Grase sette; and his face had a strange, fixed 'look which the others inter- preted to be agitation at the thought that he had saved his own life by finding Bignold--and alive; which would put his own salvation beyond doubt. He broke away from them and hurried down the Guich, The others followed hard after, the Sheriff and the warders close behind; but he outstripped them. Suddenly he stopped and stood still, looking at something on the ground. They saw him lean for- ward and his hands Stretched out with a fierce gesture. It was the attitude of a wild animal ready to spring. They were beside him in an in stant, and saw at his feet Bignold, worn to a skeleton, with eyes start- Ing from his head and fixed on Grassette in agony and stark fear. The Sheriff stooped to JMft Bignold up, but Grassette waved them back with a flerce gesture, standing over the dying man. "He spoil my home. He break me =I have my bill to settle here," he sald, In a volce hoarse and harsh, "It Is so? It is so--eh? Bpik!" he said to Bignold. "Yes," came feebly from the shrive. "Water! Water!™ The ,Sherifr stooped and held a hatful of water to Bignold's lips, while another poured brandy from a flask into the water, 3 Grassette watched them eagerly, When the dying man had swallowed a little of the spirit ang 'water, Grassette leaned over htm again, and the others drew away. They real- ized that these two men had an ao- count to settle, and there was no need for Grassette to take revenge, for Bignold was going fast. "You stan' far back" sald Grase sette, and they fell away, Then he stooped down to the sune ken, ashen face, over which deaths Pwas fast drawing its veil, "Marcile--where 1g Marcfle?® he asknd, To dying man's lips opened. "God forgive me--God save my soul:™ he whispered. He was not concerned for Grassette now, "Queeck---queeck, where is Mare clle? Grassette sald, sharply. "Come ' back, Bignold. Ligten-- where {s Marcile 7" : He strained to hear the answer, Bignold was going, but his eyes opened again, however, for this call seemed to pierce to his sou] as ft striggled to be free. "Ten years--since--I saw her," he Whispered. "Good girt--Marefle, She loves you, but she--is afratid® ye tried to say something more, but his tongue refused its office, "Where is she?--spik!" command. ed Grassette, in a tone of pleading back, A hand made a motion to- ward his pocket, then lay stil), Grassette felt hastfly in the dead pocket, a forth a letter, and stormed, hating his fellow-man, ------