ne way or the other, I
reckon. It isn't a thing for you to take to heart and worry over. I
never should have taken you to that gloomy old jail to see him, at
all."

"I can't forget him there--I'll always see him there!" she shuddered.
"He's above them all--they'll never understand him, never in this
world!"

She got up, her hair hanging upon her shoulders, and left him abruptly,
as if she had discovered something that lay in her heart. Colonel Price
sat looking after her, his back very straight, his hand upon his knee.

"Well!" said he. Then, after a long ruminative spell: "Well!"

That same hour Hammer was laboring with his client in the jail, as he
had labored fruitlessly before, in an endeavor to induce him to impart
to him the thing that he had concealed at the coroner's inquest into
Isom Chase's death. Hammer assured him that it would not pass beyond him
in case that it had no value in establishing his innocence.

"Mr. Hammer, sir," said Joe, with unbending dignity and firmness, "if
the information you ask of me was mine to give, freely and honorably,
I'd give it. You can see that. Maybe something will turn up between now
and Monday that will make a change, but if not, you'll have to do the
best you can for me the way it stands. Maybe I oughtn't expect you to go
into the court and defend me, seeing that I can't help you any more than
I'm doing. If you feel that you'd better drop out of the case, you're
free to do it, without any hard feelings on my part, sir."

Hammer had no intention of dropping the case, hopeless as he felt the
defense to be. Even defeat would be glorious, and loss profitable, for
his connection with the defense would sound his name from one end of the
state to the other.

"I wouldn't desert you in the hour of your need, Joe, for anything they
could name," said Hammer, with significant suggestion.

His manner, more than his words, carried the impression that they had
named sums, recognizing in him an insuperable barrier to the state's
case, but that he had put his tempters aside with high-born scorn.

"Thank you," said Joe.

"But if Missis Chase was mixed up in it any way, I want you to tell me,
Joe," he pressed.

Joe said nothing. He looked as stiff and hard as one of the iron
hitching-posts in front of the court-house, thought Hammer, the side of
his face turned to the lawyer, who measured it with quick eyes.

"Was she, Joe?" whispered Hammer, leaning forward, his face close to th