e arrest of Peter
Newbolt's boy for the murder of Isom Chase, and the news of it had come
to him with a disturbing shock, almost as poignant as if one of his own
blood had been accused.

The colonel knew the sad story of Peter marrying below his estate away
back there in Kentucky long ago. The Newbolts were blue-grass people,
entitled to mate with the best in the land. Peter had debased his blood
by marrying a mountain girl. Colonel Price had held it always to Peter's
credit that he had been ashamed of his _mesalliance_, and had plunged
away into the woods of Missouri with his bride to hide her from the eyes
of his aristocratic family and friends.

Back in Kentucky the colonel's family and the Newbolt's had been
neighbors. A few years after Peter made his dash across the Mississippi
with his bride, and the journey on horseback to his new home, young
Price had followed, drawn to Shelbyville by the fame of that place at a
seat of culture and knowledge, which even in that early day had spread
afar. The colonel--not having won his title then--came across the river
with his easel under one arm and his pride under the other. He had kept
both of them in honor all those years.

On the hopes and ambitions of those early days the colonel had realized,
in a small way, something in the measure of a man who sets to work with
the intention of making a million and finds himself content at last to
count his gains by hundreds. He had taken up politics as a spice to the
placid life of art, and once had represented his district in the state
assembly, and four times had been elected county clerk. Then he had
retired on his honors, with a competence from his early investments and
an undivided ambition to paint corn.

Through all those years he had watched the struggles of Peter Newbolt,
who never seemed able to kick a foothold in the steps of success, and he
had seen him die at last, with his unrealized schemes of life around
him. And now Peter's boy was in jail, charged with slaying old Isom
Chase. Death had its compensations, at the worst, reflected the colonel.
It had spared Peter this crowning disgrace.

That boy must be a throw-back, thought the colonel, to the ambuscading,
feud-fighting men on his mother's side. The Newbolts never had been
accused of crime back in Kentucky. There they had been the legislators,
the judges, the governors, and senators. Yes, thought the colonel,
coming around the corner of the house, lifting the fra