r them.

"I don't know as I've got anythin' to say to you," continued the
prisoner. "I 'ain't got no picture to give you, an' if I had one I
wouldn't give it. I don't want my hangin' to be all wrote up in the
papers, with pictures an' things, too, jest to please the people in the
East. If I've got to die, I'd rather do it quiet and peaceful, among the
boys I know. I ain't no free circus."

"We did not come to write you up; it was for another purpose," Harley
hastened to say.

He was surprised at the youth of the prisoner, who obviously was not
over twenty-one, a mere boy, with good features and a look half defiant,
half appealing.

"Well, what did you come for, then?" asked the boy.

Harley was unable to answer this question, and he looked at Hobart as if
to indicate the one who would reply. The "mystery" man did not seek to
evade his responsibility in the least, and promptly said:

"Mr. Boyd, I think you will acquit us of any intention to intrude upon
you. It was the best of motives that brought us to you. I have always
had an interest in cases of this sort, and when I heard of yours in the
train, coming here, I received an impression then which has been
strengthened on my arrival in Grayville. I believe you are innocent."

The boy looked up. A sudden flash of gratitude, almost of hope, appeared
in his eyes.

"I am!" he cried. "God knows I didn't kill Bill Wofford. He wuz my
partner and we wuz like brothers. We did quarrel that mornin'--I don't
deny it--and we both had been liquorin'; but I'd never hev struck him a
blow of any kind, least of all a foul one."

"Was it not true that you were found with the bloody knife in your hand,
standing over his yet warm body?" asked Hobart.

"It's so, but it was somebody else that used the knife. Bill went on
ahead, and when I come into the place I saw him on the floor an' the
knife in 'im. I was struck all a-heap, but I did what anybody else would
'a' done--I pulled the knife out. And then the fellers come in on me. I
was rushed into a trial right away. Of course, I couldn't tell a
straight tale; the horror of it was still in my brain, and the effect
o' the liquor, too. I got all mixed up--but before God, gen'lemen, I
didn't do it."

His tone was strong with sincerity, and his expression was rather that
of grief than remorse. Harley, who had had a long experience with all
kinds of men in all kinds of situations, did not believe that he was
either bad or guilty. Hobar