“Then came that death Winter in Lost City.  You know better than I what the laws were in those days, Fingers.  Food failed to come up.  Snow came early, the thermometer never rose over fifty below zero for three straight months, and Lost City was an inferno of starvation and death.  You could go out and kill a man, then, and perhaps get away with it, Fingers.  But if you stole so much as a crust of bread or a single bean, you were taken to the edge of the camp and told to go!  And that meant certain death—­death from hunger and cold, more terrible than shooting or hanging, and for that reason it was the penalty for theft.

“Tatman wasn’t a thief.  It was seeing his young wife slowly dying of hunger, and his horror at the thought of seeing her fall, as others were falling, a victim to scurvy, that made him steal.  He broke into a cabin in the dead of night and stole two cans of beans and a pan of potatoes, more precious than a thousand times their weight in gold.  And he was caught.  Of course, there was the wife.  But those were the days when a woman couldn’t save a man, no matter how lovely she was.  Tatman was taken to the edge of camp and given his pack and his gun—­but no food.  And the girl, hooded and booted, was at his side, for she was determined to die with him.  For her sake Tatman had lied up to the last minute, protesting his innocence.

“But the beans and the potatoes were found in his cabin, and that was evidence enough.  And then, just as they were about to go straight out into the blizzard that meant death within a few hours, then—­”

Kent rose to his feet, and walked to the little window, and stood there, looking out.  “Fingers, now and then a superman is born on earth.  And a superman was there in that crowd of hunger-stricken and embittered men.  At the last moment he stepped out and in a loud voice declared that Tatman was innocent and that he was guilty.  Unafraid, he made a remarkable confession.  He had stolen the beans and the potatoes and had slipped them into the Tatman cabin when they were asleep.  Why?  Because he wanted to save the woman from hunger!  Yes, he lied, Fingers.  He lied because he loved the wife that belonged to another man—­lied because in him there was a heart as true as any heart God ever made.  He lied!  And his lie was a splendid thing.  He went out into that blizzard, strengthened by a love that was greater than his fear of death, and the camp never heard of him again.  Tatman and his wife returned to their cabin and lived.  Fingers—­” Kent whirled suddenly from the window.  “Fingers—­”

And Fingers, like a sphynx, sat and stared at Kent.

“You were that man,” Kent went on, coming nearer to him.  “You lied, because you loved a woman, and you went out to face death because of that woman.  The men at Lost City didn’t know it, Fingers.  The husband didn’t know it.  And the girl, that girl-wife you worshiped in secret, didn’t dream of it!  But that was the truth, and you know it deep down in your soul.  You fought your way out.  You lived!  And all these years, down here on your porch, you’ve been dreaming of a woman, of the girl you were willing to die for a long time ago.  Fingers, am I right?  And if I am, will you shake hands?”