grins; and with a single exception they looked much like any other road
gang at work anywhere in the land. An expert might have recognized
purely criminal types among them: to a layman they suggested merely the
lower grades of unskilled labor. Some of the faces were distinctly
brutal; there was the sullen visage of a powerful negro who, with
different environment, might have been a Congo prince; but the face of
"Plug" Spanos, a notorious gunman who was by far the worst character in
the gang, might have been that of an artless plow-boy in a distant land
under a warm sun. There remained, however, the "exception." Curiously
enough, whenever the warden's thought dwelt upon the inmates of his
prison, classifying them into various groups, there was always one
wind-tanned, vivid face, one brawny, towering form that seemed to demand
individual consideration. The man who was listed on the records as Ben
Kinney was distinctly an individual. He some way failed to classify
among the groups of his fellows. Because he had been sent out to-day
with the road gang the two armed guards had an interesting subject of
conversation.

In the first place he habitually did two men's work. He did not do it
with any idea of trying to ingratiate himself with his keepers: no
inmate of the institution at Walla Walla made any such mistake as that.
He did it purely because he could not tone down his mighty strength and
energy to stay even with his fellows. To-day Sprigley, the guard in
first command of the gang, had placed him opposite Judy, the burly
negro, but the latter was being driven straight toward absolute
exhaustion. Yet Kinney at least knew how to subdue and direct the
pouring fountain of his vitality and energy, for the robust blows of his
pick fell with the regularity of a tireless machine. It was as if a wild
stallion, off the plains, had been trained to draw the plow. His great
muscles moved with marvelous precision; but for all the monotony and