I can keep away from them, up here in the mountains, but I can't get out.

I won't go back to that hell they call prison though--I won't." There was no mistaking his desperate purpose.
James Rutlidge thought of that quick movement toward the edge of the trail and the rocky depth below.

"You don't seem such a bad sort, at heart," he said invitingly.
"I'm not," returned the other, "I've been a fool--miserably weak fool--but I've had my lesson--only--I have had it too late." While the man was speaking, James Rutlidge was thinking quickly.

As he had been moved, at first, by a spirit of compassion to give temporary assistance to the poor hunted creature, he was now prompted to offer more lasting help--providing, of course, that he could do so without too great a risk to his own convenience.

The convict's hopeless condition, his despairing purpose, and his evident wish to live free from the past, all combined to arouse in the other a desire to aid him.