“I know it's bad, but we've got to save him, Mr. Dwight. You can't have your own son--” “Have him _what?_” Dwight rose, swaying from side to side, and stood facing the lawyer. “Well, you can't have him sent to jail for murder; you can't have him--found guilty and publicly executed. The law is a ticklish business. Absolutely innocent men have been hanged time after time. I tell you this concealment of the thing, and Carson's hot fury at Willis and the remarks he has made here and there about him--the fact that he was armed--that there were no witnesses to the duel--that he allowed the erroneous verdict of the coroner's jury to go on record--all these things, with a scoundrel like Wiggin in the background at deadly work to thwart us and pull Carson out of his track, are very, very serious. It is the most serious job I ever tackled in the courts, but I'm going to put it through or, as God is my judge, Mr. Dwight, I'll throw up the law.” Tears were now flowing freely from the old merchant's eyes and, unhindered, dripped from his face to the ground. Taking Garner's hand he grasped it firmly, and as he wrung it he sobbed: “Save my boy, Billy, and I'll never let you want for means as long as you live. He's all I've got, and I'm prouder of him than I ever let folks know. I've made a lot of fuss over some things he's done, but through it all I was proud of him, proud of him because he saw deeper into right than I did. Even this nigger question--I talked against that a lot, because I thought it would pull him down, but when I heard how he got you all together in Blackburn's store that night and persuaded you to save old Linda's boy--when I learned of that and heard the old woman's cries of joy, and saw the far-reaching effects of what Carson was standing for, I was so proud and thankful that I sneaked off to my room and cried--cried like a child; and now upon it all, as his reward, comes this thing. Oh, Billy, save him! Don't crush the poor boy's spirit. I've always wanted to aid you in some substantial way for your interest in him, and I'm going to do it this time.” “I hope we can squash the thing in justice court in the morning, Mr. Dwight,” Garner said, confidently. “The chief thing is for you to keep it all from your wife until then, anyway. I can't do a thing with Carson till his mind is at ease over her. He worships the ground she walks on, Mr. Dwight, and if it hadn't been for that he would have been out of this trouble long ago, for I'm sure a plain statement of the matter immediately after it happened would have cleared him without any trouble. In his desire to spare his mother he has complicated the case, that's all.”