tle of that, a drink
here, a game of euchre there, a ride after cattle, a hunt behind Guidon
Hill!--But what is that? You have heard the cry of the eagle, you have
seen him carry off a lamb, you have had a pot-shot at him, but what do
you know of the eagle's nest? Mais non.

"The lamb is one thing, the nest is another. You don't know the eagle
till you've been there. And you, Gohawk, would not understand, if you
saw the nest. Such cancan!"

"Shut your mouth!" broke out Gohawk. "D'ye think I'm going to stand
your--"

Freddy Tarlton laid a hand on his arm. "Keep quiet, Gohawk. What good
will it do?" Then he said, "Tell us about the nest, Pierre; they're
hanging him for the lamb in the morning."

"Who spoke for him at the trial?" Pierre asked.

"I did," said Tarlton. "I spoke as well as I could, but the game was
dead against him from the start. The sheriff was popular, and young;
young--that was the thing; handsome too, and the women, of course! It
was sure from the start; besides, Malachi would say nothing--didn't seem
to care."

"No, not to care," mused Pierre. "What did you say for him to the
jury--I mean the devil of a thing to make them sit up and think, 'Poor
Malachi!'--like that."

"Best speech y'ever heard," Gohawk interjected; "just emptied the words
out, split 'em like peas, by gol! till he got to one place right before
the end. Then he pulled up sudden, and it got so quiet you could
'a heard a pin drop. 'Gen'lemen of the jury,' says Freddy Tarlton
here--gen'lemen, by gol! all that lot--Lagan and the rest! 'Gen'lemen of
the jury,' he says, 'be you danged well sure that you're at one with
God A'mighty in this; that you've got at the core of justice here; that
you've got evidence to satisfy Him who you've all got to satisfy some
day, or git out. Not evidence as to shootin', but evidence as to what
that shootin' meant, an' whether it was meant to kill, an' what for.
The case is like this, gen'lemen of the jury,' says Freddy Tarlton here.
'Two men are in a street alone. There's a shot, out comes everybody, and
sees Fargo the sheriff laid along the ground, his mouth in the dust, and
a full-up gun in his fingers. Not forty feet away stands Malachi with
a gun smokin' in his fist. It seems to be the opinion that it was
cussedness--just cussedness--that made Malachi turn the sheriff's boots
to the sun. For Malachi was quarrelsome. I'll give you a quarter on
that. And the sheriff was mettlesome, used to have high