But it appeared that the choicest section of the Honorable Pulaski's charitable hopes was doomed to disappointment. A torch, tossing from the edge of the stunted growth, marked the approach of some one. "The top of Jerusalem seems liable to be a popular roosting-place for all them that ain't wearing asbestos pants," remarked the high sheriff, dryly. "A rush of excursionists during the heated spell, as the summer-boarder ads say! Lane, can you give the crowd anything to eat at your tavern except broiled moose and fricasseed bobcat?" The pleasantry evoked no smile. For the little group at the cabin, Pulaski Britt first of all, with his keener eyes of hate, recognized those who were approaching. Old Christopher Straight came ahead with the torch. The girl of Misery Gore, moving more slowly now that she saw the group at the top of Jerusalem, her face sullen, her head cocked defiantly, was at his back, and Dwight Wade was at her side. Far behind, at the edge of the torch's radiance, slouched a huge figure of a man. It was foolish Abe, the hirsute giant of the Skeets. "And now, speaking of arresting in the name of the law," snarled the lumber baron, "and your duty that you seem so fond of, Rodliff, get out your handcuffs for something that's worth while. It's three years in state-prison for maliciously setting fires on timber lands. It's a long vacation in the county jail for assaulting a man without provocation. There's the girl who set that fire; there's the man that struck me. So you see, Lane, your prisoner is going to have company." Lane came suddenly away from the cage. The torch showed his face working with strange emotion. "Mr. Britt," he said, appealingly, to the astonishment of the senator, who understood this sour woods cynic's nature, "there are crimes that ain't crimes in this world--not even when they're judged by God's own scale. There's your fire yonder! Some one is responsible for it--but not that poor girl!" "I saw her set it myself, you devilish idiot!" "Not that poor girl, I say. Those that threw her--her, with the pride of good blood that she felt but didn't understand--her, with her hopes and brains that her blood gave her--" "Blood!" roared the Honorable Pulaski. "What do you know about her pedigree?" "Those that threw her into that pen of swine are responsible," went on the warden. "Men like you, that have persecuted her and wonder why she doesn't squeal like the rest of those idiots; men like the whelp in that cage, trying to wrong her and throw her back into hell--all of you are responsible for that fire. You bent the limb. It has snapped back and struck you in your faces. It's the way of the woods." "Well, of all the infernal nonsense I ever listened to, this sermon on Mount Jerusalem clears the skidway," blurted Britt. "You stand up at the trial and repeat that, Lane, and you'll get your picture into the newspapers."