ust made the
speech glared mightily, and I supposed he had lost the effect of it.

"What do you mean by interrupting the court?" cried the judge. "Get out,
sir, or I'll have you fined for contempt."

Tom looked dazed. But at that moment a hand was laid on his shoulder,
and Tom turned.

"Why," says he, "thar's no devil if it ain't the Colonel. Polly Ann told
me not to let 'em scar' me, Colonel."

"And quite right, Tom," Colonel Clark answered, smiling. He turned to
the judges. "If your Honors please," said he, "this gentleman is an old
soldier of mine, and unused to the ways of court. I beg your Honors to
excuse him."

The judges smiled back, and the Colonel led us out of the building.

"Now, Tom," said he, after he had given me a nod and a kind word, "I know
this Mr. Colfax, and if you will come into the tavern this evening after
court, we'll see what can be done. I have a case of my own at present."

Tom was very grateful. He spent the remainder of the daylight hours with
other friends of his, shooting at a mark near by, serenely confident of
the result of his case now that Colonel Clark had a hand in it. Tom
being one of the best shots in Kentucky, he had won two beaver skins
before the early autumn twilight fell. As for me, I had an afternoon of
excitement in the court, fascinated by the marvels of its procedures, by
the impassioned speeches of its advocates, by the gravity of its judges.
Ambition stirred within me.

The big room of the tavern was filled with men in heated talk over the
day's doings, some calling out for black betty, some for rum, and some
demanding apple toddies. The landlord's slovenly negro came in with
candles, their feeble rays reenforcing the firelight and revealing the
mud-chinked walls. Tom and I had barely sat ourselves down at a table in
a corner, when in came Colonel Clark. Beside him was a certain swarthy
gentleman whom I had noticed in the court, a man of some thirty-five
years, with a fine, fleshy face and coal-black hair. His expression was
not one to give us the hope of an amicable settlement,--in fact, he had
the scowl of a thundercloud. He was talking quite angrily, and seemed
not to heed those around him.

"Why the devil should I see the man, Clark?" he was saying.

The Colonel did not answer until they had stopped in front of us.

"Major Colfax," said he, "this is Sergeant Tom McChesney, one of the best
friends I have in Kentucky. I think a vast deal of Tom, Major. He