"No, and I'll bet he had to dig up some money--the Judge, he likely wouldn't think of it for less'n fifteen dollars anyways. That's the price of a good shoat these days. If the case was appealed, or if it got into a court of _nisy prisus_, or maybe got over into another county on a change of _venoo_, you can bet Judge Henderson wouldn't be doing none of them things for nothing, neither. The law's all right for them that has plenty of money. Sometimes I think there's other ways." "Huh," said his companion, "old Adamson tried the other way, didn't he? Now look at him! If I was Old Man Adamson, or if I was his eejit son either, the best thing we could do, seems to me, would be to get out of town. This here boy's a fighter, if I'm any judge. Wonder if it is her boy! If it is, whoever was his father, huh? And how was he kep' hid for more'n twenty year?" "He looks sort of changed since a couple of hours ago," said his friend judicially. "He's quieter now--why, when he come into town he was just laughing and talking like a kid. Of course, he must have knew--he knows who his father is all right. Now, come to think of it, if this here boy had any money he could sue them Adamsons for deefamation of character." "How comes it he could? I hear say that all Old Man Adamson said was to call him nobody's son, and that's true enough, if he's her boy. If you call the truth to a man, that ain't no deefamation of character. As to 'Rory Lane, everybody knows the truth about her. You can't deefame a woman nohow, least of all her. We all know she had a baby when she was a girl, and it was sent away, and it died. Leastways, we _thought_ we knew. I ain't right shore what we've knew. It looks like that woman had put up some sort of game on this town. What right had she to do that?" "She was right white," said the other, somewhat irrelevantly. "Never seen no one no whiter than she was when she went in that door right now." "I don't reckon we can get no seats any more--the room's plumb full." They both were looking wistfully in at the packed assembly, when they had occasion to make room for the dignified figure of a man who now pushed his way through the throng. "How do, Judge Henderson," said old Silas Kneebone, who knew everybody. The newcomer nodded somewhat coldly. He nodded also, none too warmly, to another man who stood near the door--a tall man, of loose and bulky figure, with a fringe of red beard under his chin, a wide and smiling mouth, blue eyes, and a broad face which showed shrewdness and humor alike.