“Yes; great Lord, it was heavy! And I been carrying it ever since!” His chest rose as if the weight of that load lay on it still, and his breath expired with a hoarse “haugh.” “I got out of the way because it was _my_ load. I didn't want no help from them.” He paused and sat picking at his hands. “It's a dreadful ugly story. I'd most as soon live it over again as have to tell it in cold blood. I feel sometimes it _can't be!_” “You need not go back beyond that night. I know how my mother was left, and what sort of a man you were forced to leave her with. Was it--the keeper?” “That's what it was. That was the hard knot in my thread. Nothing wouldn't go past that. Some, when they git things in a tangle, they just reach for the shears an' cut the thread. I wa'n't brought up that way. I was taught to leave the shears alone. So I went on stringin' one year after another. But they wouldn't join on to them that went before. There was the knot.” “It was between you and him--and the law?” said Paul. “You've got it! I was there alone with it,--witness an' judge an' jury; I worked up my own case. Manslaughter with extenuatin' circumstances, I made it--though he was more beast than man. I give myself the outside penalty,--imprisonment for life. And I been working out my sentence ever since. The Western country wa'n't home to me then--more like a big prison. It's been my prison these twenty-odd years, while your mother was enjoying what belonged to her, and making a splendid job of your education. If I had let things alone I might have finished my time out: but I didn't, and now the rest of it's commuted--for the life of my son!” “Don't put it that way! I am no lamb of sacrifice. Why, how can we let things alone in this world! Should I have stood off from this secret and never asked my father for his defense?” “Do you mean to say a boy like you can take hold of this thing and understand it?” “I can,” said Paul. “I could almost tell the story myself.” “Put it up then!” said the packer. The fascination of confession was strong upon him. “You had been out in the mountains--how long?” “Two days and three nights, just as I left camp.” “You were crazed with anxiety for us. You came back to find your camp empty, the wife and baby gone. You had reason to distrust the keeper. Not for what he did--for what you knew he meant to do.”