“Just what do you mean by that, sir?” questioned the convict.

“I mean that I am not an officer and have no reason in the world for turning you over to them.  I saw you coming along the trail down there and, of course, could not help noticing your condition and guessing who you were.  To me, you are simply a poor devil who has gotten into a tight hole, and I want to help you out a bit, that’s all.”

The convict turned his eyes despairingly toward the canyon below, as he answered, “I thank you, sir, but it would have been better if you had not.  Your help has only put the end off for a few hours.  They’ve got me shut in.  I can keep away from them, up here in the mountains, but I can’t get out.  I won’t go back to that hell they call prison though—­I won’t.”  There was no mistaking his desperate purpose.

James Rutlidge thought of that quick movement toward the edge of the trail and the rocky depth below.  “You don’t seem such a bad sort, at heart,” he said invitingly.

“I’m not,” returned the other, “I’ve been a fool—­miserably weak fool—­but I’ve had my lesson—­only—­I have had it too late.”

While the man was speaking, James Rutlidge was thinking quickly.  As he had been moved, at first, by a spirit of compassion to give temporary assistance to the poor hunted creature, he was now prompted to offer more lasting help—­providing, of course, that he could do so without too great a risk to his own convenience.  The convict’s hopeless condition, his despairing purpose, and his evident wish to live free from the past, all combined to arouse in the other a desire to aid him.  But while that truly benevolent inclination was, in his consciousness, unmarred with sinister motive of any sort; still, deeper than the impulse for good in James Rutlidge’s nature lay those dominant instincts and passions that were his by inheritance and training.  The brutal desire, the mood and purpose that had brought him to that spot where with the aid of his glass he could watch Sibyl Andres, were not denied by his impulse to kindly service.  Under all his thinking, as he considered how he could help the convict to a better life, there was the shadowy suggestion of a possible situation where a man like the one before him—­wholly in his power as this man would be—­might be of use to him in furthering his own purpose—­the purpose that had brought about their meeting.

Studying the object of his pity, he said slowly, “I suppose the most of us are as deserving of punishment as the majority of those who actually get it.  One way or another, we are all trying to escape the penalty for our wrong-doing.  What if I should help you out—­make it possible for you to live like other men who are safe from the law?  What would you do if I were to help you to your freedom?”

The hunted man became incoherent in his pleading for a chance to prove the sincerity of his wish to live an orderly, respectable, and honest life.