But, scarlet fever or no scarlet fever, the pursuit of Appleweight had precedence of private grievances. By the time he reached Turner Court House Griswold had dismissed the ungraciousness of Ardmore, and his jaws were set with a determination to perform the mission intrusted to him by Barbara Osborne, and to wait until later for an accounting with his unaccountable friend. Arrived at Turner's, Griswold strode at once toward the court house. The contemptuous rejection of his message by the sheriff of Mingo had angered Griswold, but he was destined to feel even more poignant insolence when, entering the sheriff's office, a deputy, languidly posed as a letter "V" in a swivel-chair, with his feet on the mantel, took a cob pipe from his mouth and lazily answered Griswold's importunate query with: "The sheriff ain't hyeh, seh. He's a-visitin' his folks in Tennessy." "When will he be back?" demanded Griswold, hot of heart, but maintaining the icy tone that had made him so formidable in cross-examination. "I reckon I don't know, seh." "Do you know your own name?" persisted Griswold sweetly. "Go to hell, seh," replied the deputy. He reached for a match, relighted his pipe, and carefully crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf. The moment Griswold's steps died away in the outer corridor the deputy rose and busied himself so industriously with the telephone that within an hour all through the Mingo hills, and even beyond the state line, along lonely trails, across hills and through valleys, and beside cheery creeks and brooks, it was known that a strange man from Columbia was in Mingo County looking for the sheriff, and Appleweight, _alias_ Poteet, and his men were everywhere on guard. Griswold liked the prosecuting attorney on sight. His name was Habersham, and he was a youngster with a clear and steady gray eye. Instead of the Southern statesman's flowing prince albert, he wore a sack-coat of gray jeans, and was otherwise distinguished by a shirt of white and blue check. He grinned as Griswold bent a puzzled look upon him. "I took your courses at the university two years ago, Professor, and I remember distinctly that you always wore a red cravat to your Wednesday lectures." "You have done well," replied Griswold, "for I never expected to find an old student who remembered half as much of me as that. Now, as I understood you over the telephone, Appleweight was indicted for stealing a ham in this county by the last grand jury, but the sheriff has failed or refused to make the arrest. How did the grand jury come to indict if this outlaw dominates all the hill country?"