He could no longer lift the single-jack to the height of his shoulder, much less strike a blow upon the rock. He leaned against the bowlder and struck a few feeble blows with the head of the longer of the two drills; but the steel bounced back futilely, and the exertion tired him so that he was forced to desist after a few minutes of heart-breaking effort. He sat down with his back against the wall where the sunlight could find him and give a little cheer to his prison, and fingered his fourth candle longingly. He licked his cracked lips and lifted the canteen, his emaciated fingers fumbling the screw-top thirstily. He tried to reason sensibly with himself that only a cowardly reluctance to meet death--which was the inevitable goal of life--held him fighting there in that narrow dungeon, scheming to add a few more tortured hours to his life. He told himself angrily that he was merely holding up the action of the story, and that the scene should be cut right there. In other words, there was absolutely no hope of his ever getting out of there, alive or dead. Steve Carson, he mumbled, had been lucky. He had at least taken his exit quickly. “But I ain’t licked yet,” he croaked, with a cracked laugh. “There’s a lot of fight in me yet. Never had any use for a quitter. Steve Carson wouldn’t have quit--only he got beaned with the first rock and couldn’t fight. I’m not hurt--yet. Trained down pretty fine, is all. When I’m a ghost, maybe I’ll come back and tell fat ladies with Ouija boards in their laps how to reduce. Great scheme. I’ll do that little thing. But I ain’t whipped yet--not until I’ve tried out my jackknife on that damned rock. Have a drink, old son. And then get to work! What the hell are you loafing for?” He lifted the lightened canteen, his arms shaking with weakness, and took another drink of water. Then, carefully screwing on the top of the canteen, he set it down gently against the wall and reached wearily into his pocket. The blade of his knife had never been so hard to open; but he accomplished it and pulled himself laboriously to his feet. Steadying himself with one hand against the malapi bowlder that shut him in, he went to the opening--widened now so that he could thrust forth his arm to the shoulder--and began carefully chipping at a seam in the rock with the largest blade of his jackknife. He really did not expect to free himself by that means; nor by any other. Since he began to weaken he had come to accept his fate with such calmness as his pride in playing the game could muster. But he could not sit idle and wait for death to creep upon him. Nor could he hurry it, which he held to be a coward’s trick. He still believed that the “Big Director” should be obeyed. It was too late now to ask for another part in the picture. He had been cast for this rôle and he would play it to the final scene.