On arriving at the jail at Winchester, Bowling presented his order, which was signed (?) by two Justices of the Peace of Rowan County and which directed the delivery of Martin to Bowling. The order was carefully drawn in the usual form, and had every appearance of genuineness. A few minutes after John Martin's wife had bidden her husband good-bye at the Winchester jail, Bowling presented his order for the delivery of Martin. While the wife was at the station awaiting the arrival of the train which was to carry her homeward, little dreaming that she had clasped the hand of her husband warm with life for the last time, the prisoner was aroused by his keeper and told to prepare for his removal to Morehead. Martin at once became suspicious. He remonstrated against the transfer, but the jailer produced the order. The prisoner pleaded long and earnestly. He explained to the official that he had received definite information through his wife that on account of the danger that awaited him at Morehead the county authorities of Rowan County had indefinitely postponed his removal. He insisted that Bowling and his companions were his deadly enemies; that every surrounding circumstance pointed to treachery, and that his delivery into the hands of Bowling meant nothing more nor less than assassination. The jailer turned a deaf ear to his entreaties. He argued that a refusal to comply with the imperative order of the Rowan County Judge would involve him in trouble. He had no right to believe the order forged. It bore the stamp of genuineness. It seems to us, however, that a more circumspect officer, informed of the conditions and circumstances surrounding the prisoner, acquainted with the dangerous state of affairs in Rowan County as the result of which Martin had been removed to Winchester, would have held the prisoner until he could have communicated with the authorities at Morehead. Disobedience to the court's orders, intended for the protection of a helpless prisoner, could not have been subject to censure, especially when the forgery of the order was later on established. He might easily have verified the genuineness of the paper by telegraph. Blind obedience often works injury. Threatening disasters through blunders of commanding officers have often been averted by the disobedience of inferior officers, who preferred facing court martial rather than become a party to useless slaughter and defeat. John Martin was delivered to Bowling and his companions. Securely shackled, he was marched to the train. Doubtless he suffered the same mental agony as does the man on the way to the scaffold. It was pathetic chance that Mrs. Martin boarded the same train. She entered another coach, entirely ignorant of her husband's presence in the next one.