e
character, for whom a reward was offered, and that he had been at large
twenty-four hours.

In vain did he struggle for a hearing. Only once did he get a response
to his oft-repeated plea of innocence. It was when he told how he had
come by the clothes he had on. For once Phelan got a laugh when he did
not relish it.

"Got 'em off a scarecrow, did you?" said the man at his head, when the
fun had subsided; "say, I want to be 'round when you tell that to the
Superintendent of the Penitentiary--I ain't heard him laugh in ten
years!"

So, in the face of such unbelief, Phelan lapsed into silence and gloom.
What became of him concerned him less, at the moment, than the fate of
Corporal, and the thought of the faithful little beast wounded and
perhaps dying out there in the fields, made him sick at heart.

Just as they came in sight of the lights of the station, the whistle of
the freight was heard down the track and the horses were beaten to a
gallop.

Phelan was hurried from the wagon into an empty box car, with his full
guard in attendance. As the train pulled out he heard a little whimper
beside him and there, panting for breath after his long run, and with
one ear hanging limp and bloody, cowered Corporal. Phelan's hands were
not at his disposal, but even if they had been it is doubtful if he
would have denied Corp the joy for once of kissing him.

Through the rest of the night the heavy cars rumbled over the rails, and
the men took turn about sleeping and guarding the prisoner. Only once
did Phelan venture another question:

"Say, you sports, you don't mind telling me where you are taking me, do
you?"

"Listen at his gaff!" said one. "He'll know all right when he gets to
Nashville."

Phelan sent such a radiant smile into the darkness that it threatened
to reveal itself. Then he slipped his encircled wrists about Corporal's
body and giving him a squeeze whispered:

"It's better'n the bumpers, Corp."

At the Penitentiary next day there was consternation and dismay when
instead of the desperate criminal, who two days before had scaled the
walls and dropped to freedom, an innocent little Irishman was presented,
whose only offense apparently was in having donned, temporarily, the
garb of crime.

As the investigation proceeded, Phelan found it expedient, to become
excessively indignant. That an American citizen, strolling harmlessly
through the fields of a summer evening, and being caught in a shower,
shoul