as about the middle of the
afternoon--a score of men, gossiping in the lower hall of the court
building, were hushed suddenly. A young man came hurrying down the
back stairs with a look of excitement.

"What's up?" said one.

"Sidney Trove is indicted," was the answer of the young man.

He ran out of doors and down the street. People began crowding out
of the court room. Information, surprise, and conjecture--a kind
of flood pouring out of a broken dam--rushed up and down the forty
streets of the village. Soon, as of old, many were afloat and some
few were drowning in it. For a little, busy hands fell limp and
feet grew slow and tongues halted. A group of school-girls on
their way home were suddenly overtaken by the onrushing tide. They
came close together and whispered. Then a little cry of despair,
and one of them fell and was borne into a near house. A young man
ran up the stairway at the Sign of the Dial and rapped loudly at
Darrel's door, Trove and the tinker were inside.

"Old fellow," said the newcomer, his hand upon Trove's arm,
"they've voted to indict you, and I've seen all the witnesses."

Trove had a book in his hand. He rose calmly and flung it on the
table.

"It's an outrage," said he, with a sigh.

"Nay, an honour," said Darrel, quickly. "Hold up thy head, boy.
The laurel shall take the place o' the frown."

He turned to the bearer of these evil tidings.

"Have ye more knowledge o' the matter?"

"Yes, all day I have been getting hold of their evidence," said the
newcomer, a law student, who was now facing his friend Trove. "In
the first place, it was a man of blue eyes and about your build who
broke into the bank at Milldam. It is the sworn statement of the
clerk, who has now recovered. He does not go so far as to say you
are the man, but does say it was a man like you that assaulted him.
It appears the robber had his face covered with a red bandanna
handkerchief in which square holes were cut so he could see
through. The clerk remembers it was covered with a little white
figure--that of a log cabin. Such a handkerchief was sold years
ago in the campaign of Harrison, but has gone out of use. Not a
store in the county has had them since '45. The clerk fired upon
him with a pistol, and thinks he wounded him in the left forearm.
In their fight the robber struck him with a sling-shot, and he
fell, and remembers nothing more until he came to in the dark
alone. The skin was cut