said Percival. He
turned to walk away.

"Just a moment," called out Landover, after the younger man had taken a
few steps. "See here, Percival, I don't want you to misunderstand me. If
there is anything in this talk about Crust,--you know what I mean,--and
if it should come to the point where stern measures are required, I will
be with you, heart and soul. You know that, don't you?"

Percival studied the banker's face for a moment. "I've never doubted it
for an instant, Landover. We may yet shake hands and be friends in spite
of ourselves."

Landover turned on his heel and walked away, and Percival, with a shrug
of his shoulders, set about making preparations to safe-guard Sancho
Mendez when he was brought in from the wood. He posted a number of
reliable, cool-headed men around the "meetinghouse," many of them being
armed. Arrangements were made for barricading the door and the few
windows. The prisoner was to be confined in the building, a long, low
structure, and there he was to tell his story and stand trial. There was
to be no delay in the matter of a trial.

"You will sit as judge, Mike," said the "boss," addressing Malone.
"There will not be any legal technicalities, old man, and there won't be
any appeal,--so all you've got to do is to act like a judge and not like
a lawyer. We've got to do this thing in the regular way. Try to forget
that you have practiced in the New York City courts. Remember that there
is such a thing as justice and pay absolutely no attention to what you
are in the habit of calling the law. The law is a beautiful thing if you
don't take it too seriously. Ninety-nine out of every hundred judges in
the courts of the U. S. A. sit through a trial worrying their heads
off trying to remember the law so that they can keep out of the record
things that might make them look like jackasses when the case is carried
up to a higher court,--and while they are thinking so hard about the law
they forget all about the poor little trifle called justice. I guess you
know that as well as I do, so there's no use talking about it."

"I guess I do," said Michael Malone. "I live on technicalities when I'm
in New York. If it were not for technicalities, I'd starve to death.
And, my God, man, if we had to stop and think about justice every time
we go into court, we'd be a disgrace to the profession."

Percival, Peter Snipe, Flattner and several others strode out from the
meeting-house and swept the long line o