the far pasture?"

"Yes; I came straight here when I got away."

She felt his eyes were burning her, but did not dare to raise her own.
"Why," she began, hesitated, and ended vaguely. "_How_ did you get
here?"

"You helped me!"

"I?"

"Yes. That kiss you gave me put life into me--gave me strength to get
away. I swore to myself I'd come back and thank you, alive or dead."

Every word he said she could have anticipated, so plain the situation
seemed to her now. And every word he said she knew was the truth. Yet
her cool common sense struggled against it.

"What's the use of your escaping, ef you're comin' back here to be
ketched again?" she said pertly.

He drew a little nearer to her, but seemed to her the more awkward as
she resumed her self-possession. His voice, too, was broken, as if by
exhaustion, as he said, catching his breath at intervals:--

"I'll tell you. You did more for me than you think. You made another
man o' me. I never had a man, woman, or child do to me what you did.
I never had a friend--only a pal like Red Pete, who picked me up 'on
shares.' I want to quit this yer--what I'm doin'. I want to begin by