"There's no such a thing!" said Mrs. Meadows indignantly. "Some folks are willing to work for very little these hard times, and give good value for their money. You had better eat and be thankful, and leave other folks alone!" Little Ross coming up heard but the last words, and saw his granny's agitation and the familiar attitude of the strange Coxeyite. His quick temper flashed out: "Get out with you! Go off where you belong, you dirty man!" Mrs. Meadows caught the boy, and whirled him around and shook him. "Never, never let me hear you speak like that to any man again!" "Why?" he demanded. "I'll tell you why, some day, if I have to. Pray God I may never need to tell you!" "Why?" repeated the boy, wondering at her excitement. "Come away,--come away home!" she said, and Ross saw that her eyes were red with unshed tears. He hung behind her and looked back. "He's lame," said he, half to himself. "I wouldn't have spoken that way if I'd known he had a game leg." "Who's lame?" asked Mrs. Meadows. "The Coxeyite. See. He limps bad." "Didn't I tell you! We never know, when we call names, what sore spots we may be hitting. You may have sore spots of your own some day." "I hope I sha'n't be lame," mused the boy. "And I hope I sha'n't be a Coxey." The Coxeyites had been in camp a fortnight when their trial began. Twice a day the prisoners were marched up the streets of Bisuka to the courthouse, and back again to camp, till the citizens became accustomed to the strange, unrepublican procession. The prisoners were herded along the middle of the street; on either side of them walked the marshals, and outside of the line of civil officers the guard of infantry or cavalry, the officers riding and the men on foot. This was the last march of the Coxeyites. Many citizens looking on were of the opinion that if these men desired to make themselves an "object-lesson" to the nation, this was their best chance of being useful in that capacity. For two weeks, day by day, in the prisoner's field, Henniker had been confronted with the contrast of his old service with his present demoralization. He had been a conspicuous figure among the Industrials until they came in contact with the troops; then suddenly he subsided, and was heard and seen as little as possible. Not for all that a populist congress could vote, out of the pockets of the people into the pockets of the tramp petitioners, would he have posed as one of them before the eyes of an officer, or a man, of his old regiment, who might remember him as Trumpeter Henniker of K troop. But the daily march to the courthouse was the death-sickness of his pride. Once he had walked these same streets with his head as high as any man's; and it had been, "How are you, Henniker?" and "Step in, Henniker;" or Callie had been laughing and falling out of step on his arm, or Meta--poor little Meta--waiting for him when the darkness fell!