se? I am going to open them doors-a passel of strangers can't keep
folks out of a building their own money has bought and paid for!" While
he was speaking, the judge had pushed his way through the crowd to the
foot of the steps.

"That was very nicely said, Mr. Betts," observed the judge. He smiled
widely and sweetly. The sheriff gave him a hostile glare. "Do you know
that Morrow has left town?" the judge went on.

"I ain't got nothing to do with judge Morrow. It's my duty to see that
this building is ready for him when he's a mind to open court in it."

"You are willing to assume the responsibility of throwing open these
doors?" inquired the judge affably.

"I shorely am," said Betts. "Why, some of these folks are our leading
people!"

The judge turned to the crowd, and spoke in a tone of excessive
civility. "Just a word, gentlemen!--the sheriff is right; it is your
court-house and you should not be kept out of it. No doubt there are
some of you whose presence in this building will sooner or later be
urgently desired. We are going to let all who wish to enter, but I beg
you to remember that there will be five men inside whose prejudices
are all in favor of law and order." He pushed past Hues and entered the
court-house, followed by Yancy and Hannibal. "We'll let 'em in where I
can talk to 'em," he said almost gaily. "Besides, they'll come in anyhow
when they get ready, so there's no sense in exciting them."

In the court-house, Murrell, bound hand and foot, was seated between
Carrington and the Earl of Lambeth in the little railed-off space below
the judge's bench. Fear and suffering had blanched his unshaven cheeks
and given a wild light to his deeply sunken eyes. At sight of Yancy a
smothered exclamation broke from his lips, he had supposed this man dead
these many months!

Hues had abandoned his post and the crowd, suddenly grown clamorous,
stormed the narrow entrance. One of the doors, borne from its hinges,
went down with a crash. The judge, a fierce light flashing from his
eyes, turned to Yancy.

"No matter what happens, this fellow Murrell is not to escape--if he
calls on his friends to rescue him he is to be shot!"

The hall was filling with swearing, struggling men, the floor shook
beneath their heavy tread; then they burst into the court-room and
saluted Murrell with a great shout. But Murrell, bound, in rags, and
silent, his lips frozen in a wolfish grin, was a depressing sight, and
the boldest fe