ghtly bound, a colossal statue of injured innocence.

Alice, as soon as she saw M. Roussillon, uttered a cry of sympathetic
endearment and flung herself toward him with open arms. She could not
reach around his great shoulders; but she did her best to include the
whole bulk.

"Papa! Papa Roussillon!" she chirruped between the kisses that she
showered upon his weather-beaten face.

Hamilton and Farnsworth regarded the scene with curious and surprised
interest. M. Roussillon began speaking rapidly; but being a Frenchman
he could not get on well with his tongue while his hands were tied. He
could shrug his shoulders; that helped him some.

"I am to be shot, MA PETITE," he pathetically growled in his deep bass
voice; "shot like a dog at sunrise to-morrow."

Alice kissed M. Roussillon's rough cheek once more and sprang to her
feet facing Hamilton.

"You are not such a fiend and brute as to kill Papa Roussillon," she
cried. "Why do you want to injure my poor, good papa?"

"I believe you are the young lady that stole the flag?" Hamilton
remarked, smiling contemptuously.

She looked at him with a swift flash of indignation as he uttered these
words.

"I am not a thief. I could not steal what was my own. I helped to make
that flag. It was named after me. I took it because it was mine. You
understand me, Monsieur."

"Tell where it is and your father's life will be spared."

She glanced at M. Roussillon.

"No, Alice," said he, with a pathetically futile effort to make a fine
gesture, "don't do it. I am brave enough to die. You would not have me
act the coward."

No onlooker would have even remotely suspected the fact that M.
Roussillon had chanced to overhear a conversation between Hamilton and
Farnsworth, in which Hamilton stated that he really did not intend to
hurt M. Roussillon in any event; he merely purposed to humiliate the
"big wind-bag!"

"Ah, no; let me die bravely for honor's sake--I fear death far less
than dishonor! They can shoot me, my little one, but they cannot break
my proud spirit." He tried to strike his breast over his heart.

"Perhaps it would be just as well to let him be shot," said Hamilton
gruffly, and with dry indifference. "I don't fancy that he's of much
value to the community at best. He'll make a good target for a squad,
and we need an example."

"Do you mean it?--you ugly English brute--would you murder him?" she
stamped her foot.

"Not if I get that flag between now and sundo