an inner apartment, where consultations were held when too important for the ear of the indiscriminate groups in the main office, and where there was a lounge, on which he slept during court week, or when political business was too brisk to admit of his driving out to his home on his farm, some miles from the town. “Well,” said Harshaw, tilting his chair back upon its hind legs until it creaked and quaked with the weight, and clasping both hands behind his yellow head, “I wonder you ain’t willing for Gwinnan to be a fool, considering what Mink got for beating his skull into a different shape.” The county boasted no weekly newspaper, and without it the news was a laggard. Ben Doaks looked up with interest; Bylor paused expectant. Jerry Price, too, was present, for there was an unusual number from the coves in town—this was county court week, and the crowd assembled offered special facilities for trading stock and small commodities. The hickory logs crackled on the hearth above the gleaming coals, and the white and yellow flames were broadly flaring; great beds of gray ashes lay beneath, for they were seldom removed; the murmurous monotone of the fire filled the pause. “Yes, sir,” said Harshaw, taking his pipe from his lips and knocking the ashes from the bowl, “Mink got a sentence for twenty years in the penitentiary for assault with intent to commit murder.” There was dead silence. The clay pipe that Jerry Price was smoking fell from his hands unheeded, and broke into fragments on the hearth. This knowledge affected the group more than the news of Mink’s death might have done. That at least was uncertain. The mind flags and fails to follow in the journey to the unknown the spirit that has quitted the familiar flesh,—the entity for which it has merely a name, an impression, an illusion of acquaintance. But this sordid, definite fact, this measure of desolation bounded by four walls, this hopeless rage, this mental revulsion from ignominy, all were of mortal experience and easily imagined. “Yes, sir,” resumed Harshaw, his florid face grave but firm. He had the air of a man whose feelings have been schooled to calmness, but who protests against a fact. “I did what I could for Mink. I couldn’t defend him myself,—couldn’t leave the interests of my constituents in the House for the sake of an individual; but I put the case in Jerome Maupert’s hands. Maupert couldn’t help it. Mink was locking the door of the state prison and double-locking it every time he lifted his hand to strike Gwinnan. A _judge_, you know,”—he rolled his eyes significantly at the group,—“a judge is a mighty big man, and Mink is just a poor mountain boy.” He stuck his pipe into his mouth again, and vigorously puffed it into a glow. “The crowd in court cheered when the jury gave their verdict,” he said. The group looked at each other with quick, offended glances; then lapsed into gazing at the fire and contemplating the circumstances.