his gills at that moment and was preparing to cast him into the fire. Up in the office in the city, they went on making senators and governors, and slipping a federal judge in where they could, but he had little hand in it, for his power was a discarded toy. He sat in his boat alone, rowing for miles and miles, from stump to stump, and from fallen tree-top to tree-top, hating the thing he called God, and distrusting men. But when he appeared in the town, or at home, he was cheerful enough; he liked to mingle with the people, and it fed his despair to notice what a hang-dog way they had with him. He knew they had been abusing him behind his back, and when he found out exactly what a man had said, he delighted in facing the man down with it. "So you think John Barclay could have saved Bob Hendricks' life, do you, Oscar?" asked Barclay, as he overhauled Fernald coming out of the post-office. "Who said so?" asked Fernald, turning red. "Oh," chuckled Barclay, "I got it from the hired girls' wireless news agency. But you said it all right--you said it, Oscar; you said it over to Ward's at dinner night before last." And Barclay grinned maliciously. Fernald scratched his head, and said, "Well, John, to be frank with you, that's the talk all over town--among the people." "The people--the people," snapped Barclay, impatiently, "the people take my money for bridges and halls and parks and churches and statues and then call me a murderer--oh, damn the people! Who started this story?" "See Jake Dolan, John--it's up to him. He can satisfy you," said Fernald, and turned, leaving Barclay in the street. Up the hill trudged the gray-clad little man, with his pugnacious shoulders weaving and his bronzed face set hard and his mean jaw locked. On the steps of the court-house he found Jake Dolan, smoking a morning pipe with the loafers in the shade of the building. "Here you, Jake Dolan," called Barclay, "what do you mean by accusing me of murdering Bob Hendricks? What did I have to do with it?" "Easy, easy, Johnnie, my boy," returned Dolan, knocking the ashes from his pipe on the steps between his feet. "Gentlemen," said Dolan, addressing the crowd, "you've heard what our friend says. All right--come with me to my office, Johnnie Barclay, and I'll show you." Barclay followed Dolan into the basement of the court-house, with the crowd at a respectful distance. "Right this way--" and Dolan switched on an electric light. "Do you see that break in the foundation, Mr. Barclay? You do? And you know in your soul that it opens into the cave that leads to the cellar of your own house. Well, then, Mr. Johnnie Barclay--the book that contained the evidence against Bob Hendricks did not go out of this court-house by the front door, as you well know, but through that hole--stolen at night when I was out; and the man who stole it was the horse thief that used to run the cave--your esteemed friend, Lige Bemis."