The visitor shook his head. Scribbling a brief note on a slip of paper, he enclosed it in an envelope and handed it to his questioner. "You must pardon my seeming mysteriousness," he said, "but, if you will let me send in that note, I think the Governor will see me." Once more the Secretary studied his man with a slightly puzzled air, then nodded and went through the door that gave admission to the Executive's office. His Excellency opened the envelope, and his face showed an expression of surprise. He raised his brows questioningly. "Rough-looking sort?" he inquired. "Mountaineer?" "No, sir. New Yorker would be my guess. Is there anything suspicious?" "I guess not." The Governor laughed. "Rather extraordinary note, but send him in." Through his eastern window, the Governor gazed off across the hills of South Frankfort, to the ribbon of river that came down from the troublesome hills. Then, hearing a movement at his back, he turned, and his eyes took in a well-dressed figure with confidence-inspiring features. He picked up the slip from his desk, and, for a moment, stood comparing the name and the message with the man who had sent them in. There seemed to be in his mind some irreconcilable contradiction between the two. With a slightly frowning seriousness, the Executive suggested: "This note says that you are Samson South, and that you want to see me with reference to a pardon. Whose pardon is it, Mr. South?" "My own, sir." The Governor raised his brows, slightly. "Your pardon for what? The newspapers do not even report that you have yet been indicted." He shaded the word "yet" with a slight emphasis. "I think I have been indicted within the past day or two. I'm not sure myself." The Governor continued to stare. The impression he had formed of the "Wildcat" from press dispatches was warring with the pleasing personal presence of this visitor. Then, his forehead wrinkled under his black hair, and his lips drew themselves sternly. "You have come to me too soon, sir," he said curtly. "The pardoning power is a thing to be most cautiously used at all times, and certainly never until the courts have acted. A case not yet adjudicated cannot address itself to executive clemency." Samson nodded. "Quite true," he admitted. "If I announced that I had come on the matter of a pardon, it was largely that I had to state some business and that seemed the briefest way of putting it." "Then, there is something else?" "Yes. If it were only a plea for clemency, I should expect the matter to be chiefly important to myself. In point of fact, I hope to make it equally interesting to you. Whether you give me a pardon in a fashion which violates all precedent, or whether I surrender myself, and go back to a trial which will be merely a form of assassination, rests entirely with you, sir. You will not find me insistent."