"Whitredge is a dangerous man," was Benedict's comment. "He took the train from Glendale last night, and the detective went with him, wiring me from a station up the line. I caught the next train and got here two hours ago. I might have headed him off of you, I suppose, but I had a bit of legal business to attend to first. If you are ready, we'll go. Your wife is waiting for you in the warden's office, and she'll be wondering why we are so long about getting the doors unlocked." "Go?" I stammered. "You--you mean that I'm free?" "Sure you are! My legal business was to press the _habeas corpus_ proceedings which were begun as soon as I had obtained evidence of the miscarriage of justice in your trial before Judge Haskins. You are a free man. I left the order of the court with the warden as I came in." There is a limit to human endurance, either of sorrow or of joy. I got up and tried to walk with Benedict to the cell door, which had been left standing open. I remember catching at the big lawyer's arm, and then the world went black before my eyes. And that is all I do remember. * * * * * * We held our council of war--the final one in the long series--late in the evening of the day of climaxes in the sitting-room of a Hotel Buckingham suite, Benedict, Barrett and I. Barrett had arrived just as we were sitting down to dinner, having hurried east as soon as he could be spared at Cripple Creek. "They are all in, down and out," was Barrett's summing-up of the situation, after he had heard Benedict's story. And then: "It's up to you, Jimmy"--looking away from me. "You owe those two old men and their scamp of a lawyer a pretty long score, and I guess you'll be wanting to pay it." "I do!" I gritted. In a flash all the injustice I had suffered at the hands of Abel Geddis and Abner Withers and Cyrus Whitredge piled in upon me and there was no room in my heart for anything but retaliation. Benedict clipped and lighted a cigar, and Barrett sat back in his chair and stared at the gas-fixture in the center of the ceiling. "I can't blame you much, Jimmie," he offered. "I guess maybe, if the shoe were on my foot, I'd want to give them the limit. And yet----" "There isn't any 'and yet'," I cried out. "Perhaps not; but I don't know, Jimmie. If I were going to be the father of Polly's children, as you are, I--well, I don't believe I'd care to hand down that sort of a legacy to the children; a legacy of hatred--even a just hatred--gorged and surfeited on the thumb-screwing of two old men. Whitredge will get what is coming to him; the Bar Association will see to that. But these two old misers who are already tottering on the edge of the grave----" "They have robbed me of my good name, and they have robbed us all of our good money!" I cut in rancorously. At this, Benedict, who had been saying little, put in his word.