“I’m tol’able, thank you.” Yerby, looking across her shoulder, saw a guard moving toward them. He did not mention to her that he was liable to ten days’ solitary confinement for talking to a visitor without permission. “How’s Missie—and Son?” “Missie is prettier than ever. She’s always talking about you. And the boy—he’s the dandiest little chap—smart as a whip and good as gold. You’ll be awfully pleased with him when you come home.” “Yes’m—when I come home.” His voice fell flat. Its lifelessness went to the heart of his friend. She saw that hope was dead within him. He was getting into the fifties, and the years were slipping away. “That won’t be long. We’re getting up a petition to——” The guard pushed between Ruth and the convict. “You know the rule, Yerby,” he said curtly. “Yes, sir, and I most generally aim to keep it. But when a lady speaks to me—an old friend——” “Come along with me.” The old cowman dropped his shovel and shambled off beside the guard. Ruth turned in consternation to the wife of the warden. “What have I done?” “He oughtn’t to have talked with you. That’s the rule. He knew it.” “You won’t let him be punished because I made a mistake, will you? He’s a Texan, you know. He thinks it wouldn’t be courteous not to answer a lady. It would make me very unhappy if I had got him into trouble.” The warden’s wife smiled. “I think it can be arranged this time. We all like him. We’re all sorry for him. He takes it to heart a good deal that he has to stay in prison. I talk with him when he pots my plants, and he tells me he wants to hear the whining of a rope and to taste the dust of the drag driver, whatever that is. I wish the governor would pardon him. If he stays much longer he’ll become an old man with no hope in his heart.” “I’ll tell his wife that you are good to him. It will be a great comfort to her. She’s a good deal younger than he is, but she’s very fond of him.” The meeting with Yerby depressed Ruth more even than her encounter with Falkner. She took home with her a memory of a brave man slowly having the zest of life pressed out of him. But of this she said little when next she wrote to Rowan. Always her letters had running through them the red thread of hope. She told him that Flanders was getting up a petition for a parole which had been signed by half the county, including the judge who had tried him, every member of the jury, the prosecuting attorney, and the sheriff. Nor did she mention that Ruth McCoy was the motive power behind the petition, that she in person had won the signatures of Haight, Matson, and the judge, as well as hundreds of others. The clock struck midnight before she finished her letter: