he district court. Franklin's heart sank. He dreaded
the night. The real court, as he admitted to himself, would continue
its session that night at the Cottage bar, and perhaps it might not
adjourn until a verdict had been rendered.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE VERDICT

There came over the town of Ellisville that night an ominous quiet.
But few men appeared on the streets. Nobody talked, or if any one did
there was one subject to which no reference was made. A hush had
fallen upon all. The sky, dotted with a million blazing stars, looked
icy and apart. A glory of moonlight flooded the streets, yet never was
moon more cold.

Franklin finished his dinner and sat down alone for a time in the great
barren office of the depot hotel where he made his home. The
excitement of the trial, suspended at its height, was now followed by
reaction, a despondency which it was hard to shake off. Was this,
then, the land of his choice? he thought. And what, then, was this
human nature of which men sung and wrote? He shook himself together
with difficulty.

He went to his room and buckled on his revolver, smiling grimly as he
did so at the thought of how intimately all law is related to violence,
and how relative to its environment is all law. He went to
Battersleigh's room and knocked, entering at the loud invitation of
that friend.

"Shure, Ned, me boy," said Battersleigh, "ye've yer side arms on this
evenin'. Ye give up the profission of arms with reluctance. Tell me,
Ned, what's the campaign fer the evenin'?"

"Well," said Franklin, "I thought I'd step over and sit awhile with
Curly this evening. He may be feeling a little lonesome."

"Quite right ye are, me boy," said Battersleigh cheerfully. "Quite
right. An' if ye don't mind I'll just jine ye. It's lonesome I am
meself the night."

Battersleigh busied himself about his room, and soon appeared arrayed,
as was Franklin himself, with a revolver at his belt.

"Shure, Ned, me boy," he said, "an officer an' a gintleman should
nivver appear abroad without his side arms. At laste, methinks, not on
a night like this." He looked at Franklin calmly, and the latter rose
and grasped the hand of the fearless old soldier without a word. The
two strolled out together down the street in the direction of the
shanty where Curly was keeping his "prisoner."

At this place they saw a few men sitting outside the door, calmly
smoking--among these Sam, the liveryman, a mercha