ing over their
own heads; and I like best of all the Matthews, who throw aside their
"skin-dicate contracts" to take up the game of playing as joyfully for
right as they have for wrong, "rich" (I wish you could have heard the
full way in which he said that word) "rich" on "thirty dollars a year
for clothes," spending self without stint, joyfully, unknowing of
self-pity, for the making of right into might, for the making of a
patch of human weeds into a garden of goodness. Only, I would put on
record the fact that each man's reward was not the hero's crown of
laurel leaves, but the crown that their great prototype wore upon the
Cross.

Eleanor could not understand why she had been formally notified to
attend the coroner's inquest till the drift of the questions began to
indicate that this investigation like many another was not an
investigation to _find out_ but an investigation to _hush up_, not a
following of the clues of evidence but a deliberate attempt to throw
pursuit off on false clues. In fact, there were many things about that
inquest which Eleanor could not fathom. Why, for instance was the
local district attorney not present? Why had the Smelter Coking
Company a special pleader present? Why was the great Federal
Government not represented by an attorney of equal ability, instead of
this downy-lipped silent and incredibly ignorant youth? Why was the
first session of the inquest adjourned till the burial of her father?
Why did the sheriff act as a mentor at the ear of the chief coroner?
Why did the justice of the peace acting as coroner listen to all
suggestions from the Smelter Company's attorney and the Sheriff, and
reject all suggestions from her father's friends? Why was the
stenographer instructed to erase some evidence and preserve other?
What was the ground of discrimination? If you doubt whether these
things are ever done, dear reader; then, peruse with close scrutiny the
first criminal trial that comes under your notice; and see if you think
that the term of the Old Dispensation 'wresting the judgment' has
become obsolete? You don't suppose those long-whiskered old patriarchs
openly took the bribe in hand and right before the claimants, tucked
the loose shekels into the wide phalacteries of holy skirts--do you?

Yet, there were certain features of that inquest which awakened strange
hope in her breast. It was held in the county court room; and the
crowd gathering to listen and hear someh