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 some lines in the well-thumbed volume that he had been reading, he remarked with the backwoods drawl:

"Must 'a' took a damn big conscience to make a coward of a dawg like you!"

In reply, Bran gave a small whimper of gratitude. He had been pardoned, and accepted.

By this time the kettle was boiling, but Dave Stonor paid no attention to it. He was thinking hard. He had tired of the backwoods. He had made some money by his work in the lumber camps, and saved it. He was on his way down to the city, a hundred and fifty miles away. There he intended to take train across the continent, and go north into the vast Yukon Territory prospecting for gold.

Bran's life was forfeit. It would be absurd to regard him any longer as the property of Ben Parsons—who was no good anyhow. Bran should not die. He should go to the Yukon with Stonor. What a leader for his dog team! And what a friend and companion in the great solitudes!

Dave Stonor got up briskly, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, emptied the kettle, and scattered and beat out the fire.

"We're a mite too nigh the settlement here," he remarked to Bran, who hung close at his heels. "We'll git right on, an' stop fur grub a few miles farther down."