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In the sky Kent saw the stars clearly again, and his lungs were drinking in the cool air as in the wonderful moments before his encounter with Mercer
He had lost And it was Mercer who hadof his muscles as he walked with a hand on his arm And Kent shut his teeth close and made no answer to what Carter had said, except that Carter heard soht was a sob choked to death in the other's throat
Carter, too, was a man bred of the red blood of the North, and he kneas in Kent's heart For only by the breadth of a hair had Kent failed in his flight
Pelly was on duty at barracks, and it was Pelly who locked him in one of the three cells behind the detache of his prison cot and for the first ti breath froo the world had reached out its arone forth to its welcoedy of all his life descend upon hiedy Here there was no hope The tentacles of the law had hier dreaht that it was he, Ja of these cells! Acquainted with every trick and stratage for his freedoain he clenched his hands, and in his soul he cursed Mercer as he went to the little barredthat overlooked the river from his cell The river was near now He could hear the murmur of it He could see its movement, and thatsort of al him in his folly
He went back to his cot, and in his despair buried his face in his hands In the half-hour after that he did not raise his head For the first time in his life he knew that he was beaten, so utterly beaten that he no ht, and his soul was dark with the chaos of the things he had lost
At last he opened his eyes to the blackness of his prison roolooht of the rising h his little, steel-barredTo Kent it had crept into his cell like a living thing He watched it, fascinated His eyes followed it to the foot-square aperture, and there, red and glorious as it rose over the forests, thebut thatthe frame of hisAnd as he rose to his feet and stood where his face was flooded in the light of it, he felt stirring within hihosts of his old hopes One by one they rose up and came to life He held out his hands, as if to fill thelory of the ed once htly around the bars, and the fighting spirit rose in hi down his despair, driving the chaos out of his brain, he watched thefroreater heights, ht and color that had never failed to stir him