“’Pears like ez nobody kin git even with Gwinnan right handy,” said Bylor. “Ef ’twarn’t fur makin’ bad wuss fur Mink, I’d wisht ez he hed killed him.” “Shucks!” said Harshaw scornfully. “Gwinnan thinks he’s mighty popular with the people. He’s always doing the humbugging and bamboozling dodge. Just before I left Glaston the attorney-general—Kenbigh, you know—showed me a letter from Judge Gwinnan asking him to take no notice of Mink’s assault, as he wasn’t willing to prosecute.” He brought his chair down with a thump on its forelegs, and looked about the circle, his roseate plump face full of bantering sarcasm. “What war his notion fur that?” demanded Doaks, slowly possessing himself of the facts. “To impose on the people—so good—so lenient”—— “Mighty lenient, sure!” interpolated Bylor. He rubbed his wrist mechanically; he never was quite sure that he had not been shackled. “Letter dated just about two weeks after Mink was sentenced,” Harshaw sneered. “Waal, who war the prosecutor, then?” demanded Jerry Price, at a loss. “Why, of course they didn’t wait for a prosecutor. Mink was tried on a presentment by the grand jury; and as the criminal court came on right straight, Kenbigh just hurried him through. He’s a regular blood-hound, Kenbigh is.” There was a silence for a few moments. Several of the sticks of wood had burned in two and fallen apart, and were sending up dull columns of smoke, some of which puffed into the room,—an old trick of the chimney’s, if the testimony of the blackened ceiling be admitted. “As if,” cried Harshaw, suddenly uncrossing and crossing his legs, reversing their position, “Gwinnan, of all the men in the world, wouldn’t know and think of that! But Kenbigh seemed to take it _all_ in,—seemed to think ’twas Gwinnan’s modesty. He showed me the answer he wrote to the judge.” Harshaw cast up his eyes meditatively to the ceiling, as if seeking to recall the words. “He begged to express his admiration of Judge Gwinnan’s modesty in thinking that so serious an injury to one of the most brilliant ornaments of the State judiciary could fail to be summarily punished, or would need his personal interposition as prosecutor.” They all listened with an absent air, as if the refusal to hear the compliments nullified them. Harshaw gave a short, satirical laugh, showing his strong white teeth. “I wisht ter Gawd that thar Gwinnan wanted ter go ter Congress, or sech, ez would fling him ’fore the vote o’ Cher’kee County,—it be in the same congressional deestric’ whar he hails from,—I’d show him,” said Bylor, shaking his head with the savagery of supposititious revenge, and in the full delusion of unbridled power characteristic of the free and independent American unit. “_I’d_ show him.”