only ask you to hold back your decision on him till you can learn the
truth," said she, unconsciously passing over the colonel's declaration
of confidence. "You don't remember Joe maybe, for he was only a little
shaver the last time you stopped at our house when you was canvassin'
for office. That's been ten or 'leven--maybe more--years ago. Joe, he's
growed considerable since then."

"They do, they shoot up," said the colonel encouragingly.

"Yes; but Joe he's nothing like me. He runs after his father's side of
the family, and he's a great big man in size now, Colonel Price; but
he's as soft at heart as a dove."

So she talked on, telling him what she knew. When she had finished
laying the case of Joe before him, the colonel sat thinking it over a
bit, one hand in his beard, his head slightly bowed. Mrs. Newbolt
watched him with anxious eyes. Presently he looked at her and smiled. A
great load of uncertainty went up from her heart in a sigh.

"The first thing to do is to get him a lawyer, and the best one we can
nail," the colonel said.

She nodded, her face losing its worried tension.

"And the next thing is for Joe to make a clean breast of everything,
holding back nothing that took place between him and Isom that night."

"I'll tell him to do it," said she eagerly, "and I know he will when I
tell him you said he must."

"I'll go over to the sheriff's with you and see him," said the colonel,
avoiding the use of the word "jail" with a delicacy that was his own.

"I'm beholden to you, Colonel Price, for all your great kindness," said
she.

There had been no delay in the matter of returning an indictment against
Joe. The grand jury was in session at that time, opportunely for all
concerned, and on the day that Joe was taken to the county jail the case
was laid before that body by the prosecuting attorney. Before the grand
jury adjourned that day's business a true bill had been returned against
Joe Newbolt, charging him with the murder of Isom Chase.

There was in Shelbyville at that time a lawyer who had mounted to his
profession like a conqueror, over the heads of his fellow-townsmen as
stepping-stones. Perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say that the
chins of the men of Shelbyville were the rungs in this ladder, for the
lawyer had risen from the barber's chair. He had shaved and sheared his
way from that ancient trade, in which he had been respected as an able
hand, to the equally ancient profession, in