“Yes, Carson ought to act--concerned in it or not,” said Garner. “If something isn't done right away, it might be sprung on him on the very eve of his election and actually ruin him.” “I'm worried, an' I don't deny it,” said the mountaineer. “You see, Bill, Carson's a lawyer, and he knows whether he had a good case of self-defence or not, an' shirking investigation this way looks powerful like--” “Like he was himself the--aggressor,” interpolated Garner, with a frown. “Yes, like that,” said Baker. “Of course we know Willis was houndin' the boy and making threats, but Carson's hot-headed, as hot-headed as they make 'em, an' maybe he flared up at the first sight of Willis an' blazed away at 'im. I don't see no other reason for him lyin' so low about it.” “I'm glad you came to me,” Garner said. “I'll admit I've been fearing the thing, Pole. It will be a delicate matter to broach, but I'm going to talk to him about it. As you say, the longer it remains like it is the more serious it becomes. Good Lord! if he _did_ kill Willis--if he _did_ kill him, it would take sharp work to clear him of the charge of murder after the silly way he has acted about it. Why, dang it, it's almost an admission of guilt!” Baker had barely left the office when Carson came in, nodded to his partner, and sat down at his desk and began in an absent-minded way to cut open some letters that were waiting for him. Unobserved Garner watched him from behind the worn book he was holding up to his face. Hardened lawyer that he was, Garner's heart melted with pity as he noted the dark splotches under the young man's eyes, the pathetic droop of his shoulders, the evidences in every facial line of the grim inward struggle that was going on in the brave, supersensitive soul. Garner put down his book and went into the little consultation-room in the rear and stood at the window which looked out upon a small patch of corn in an adjoining lot. “He did it!” he said, grimly. “Yes, he did it. Poor chap!” The task before him was the hardest Garner had ever faced. He could have discussed, to the finest points of detail, such a case for a client, but Carson--the strange, winning personality over which he had marvelled so often--was different. He was the most courageous, the most self-sacrificing, the most keenly suffering human being Garner had ever known, and the most sensitively honorable. How was it possible, even indirectly, to allude to so grave a charge against such a man? And yet, Garner reflected, pessimistically, the best of men sometimes reach a point at which their high moral and spiritual tension, under one crucial test or another, breaks. Why should it not be so in Carson Dwight's case. Garner went back to his desk, sat down, and turned his revolving-chair till he faced Carson's profile. “Look here, old chap,” he said. “I've got something of a very unpleasant nature to say to you, and it's a pretty hard thing to do, considering my keen regard for you.”