Presently,--as one will when looking long through a field-glass or telescope,--he lowered his hands, to rest his eyes by looking, unaided, at the immediate objects in the landscape before him.

At that moment, the figure of a man appeared on the near-by trail below.

It was a pitiful figure--ill-kempt ragged, half-starved, haggard-faced.
Creeping feebly along the lonely little path--without seeing the man on the mountainside above--crouching as he walked with a hunted, fearful air--the poor creature moved toward the point of the spur around which the trail led beneath the spot where Rutlidge sat.
As the man on the trail drew nearer, the watcher on the rocks above involuntarily glanced toward the distant Forest Ranger; then back to the--as he rightly guessed--escaped convict.
There are, no doubt, many moments in the life of a man like James Rutlidge when, however bad or dominated by evil influences he may be, he feels strongly the impulse of pity and the kindly desire to help.

Undoubtedly, James Rutlidge inherited from his father those tendencies that made him easily ruled by his baser passions.

His character was as truly the legitimate product of the age, of the social environment, and of the thought that accepts such characters.