When we arrived at the place of trial, we found there a man by the name of Hartshorn, a lawyer, recently from Woodson county, who was to be the prosecuting attorney in the case. We were all a happy-go-lucky lot of prisoners; and when Hartshorn arose with a serious look on his countenance, read the complaint, and had expatiated on the gravity of the offense, we all arose and gave him three cheers. "Bully for Hartshorn," said Ike Vancel. The ridiculousness of the whole thing had appealed to the funny side of our natures. We called him "Old Essence of Ammonia," and yelled to him to "Give us another smell." On the way down to the place, Perkins had volunteered to defend us. He now pitched in and handled a vocabulary of words that took us all by surprise. He juggled words and phrases in such rapid succession that he completely spellbound his hearers. He wound up by painting a word picture of frail little Mrs. Heaton, alone on a desolate prairie, about to be devoured by human wolves. When he closed, Vancel said: "I m-m-move that we adjourn," which we did, by getting on our horses and riding home. Thus ended the second "legal farce" I had seen during the early settlement of southeastern Kansas. * * * * * I was in Denison, Texas, when the news of the Bender murders was heralded throughout the land, and that one of my old neighbors was in jail at Oswego, under suspicion of being implicated in those crimes. He was the only man in the neighborhood with whom I had had any personal trouble, and that was caused by his hogs and my fence,—his hogs not being allowed to run at large by law, and my fence not being hog-tight. And over that difficulty we had drifted apart, and seemed to cultivate a dislike for each other. He was a Methodist preacher, of the old Peter Cartwright school; but had an inordinate love for liquor, and, periodically, he would get "as full as a goose," and about as silly. When sobering up he would be struck with the remorse of a guilty conscience, for the sin he had committed and the example he had set before the people. He was judged by his neighbors while in these melancholy moods, as being insincere, hypocritical and mysteriously secretive. Not _all_ of us, for there were those of us who believed the old gentleman was conscientious in his religious preachings and teachings. When I read the news of his arrest, I hastened to his relief, firmly believing in his innocence. And here the Golden Rule impressed itself upon my mind more than it ever did before. I believed that Parson King was as innocent of the crime as myself; but before I reached Oswego he had been vindicated and released from custody.