“People said afterwards that I'd gone there purposely to pick a quarrel with Sharp, and his helper, who, it seems, was in the yard back of the smithy setting a wagon tire, swore he saw me through a window as I entered, and that I struck the first blow. He may have seen only the end of it, and really believed I did begin it, but that's a sample of how things got twisted. Nobody believed my motive was what I said it was. The jury found me guilty of murder, and the judge gave me a life sentence. A good deal of a fuss was made over what I did at the fire last winter. Hart told me he'd sent you the papers.” Dan nodded, and his father continued: “Some ladies who were interested in mission work at the prison took the matter up and got me my pardon. It's a fearful and a wicked thing for a man to lose his temper, Dannie. At first I was bitter against every one who had a hand in sending me to prison, but I've put that all from my heart. It was right I should be punished.” He rose from his chair, striking the ashes from his pipe. “Ain't it very late, Dannie? I'll just put away my things, and then we can go to bed. I didn't mean to keep you up.” Oakley watched his precise and orderly arrangement of his few belongings. He could see that it was a part of the prison discipline under which he had lived for almost a quarter of a century. When the contents of his bundle were disposed of to his satisfaction, he put on a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, with large, round glasses, and took up a well-thumbed Bible, which he had placed at one side. “I hope you haven't forgotten this book, Dannie,” tapping it softly with a heavy forefinger. CHAPTER VII KERR and Holt were at Buckhom Junction with the pay-car, a decrepit caboose that complained in every wheel as the engine jerked it over the rails. Holt said that its motion was good for Kerr's dyspepsia. He called it the pay-car cure, and professed to believe it a subtle manifestation of the general's benevolence. Miss Walton was having a holiday. This left Oakley the sole tenant of the office. He had returned from Chicago the day before, where he had gone to drum up work. It was a hot, breathless morning in May. The machinery in the shops droned on and on, with the lazy, softened hum of revolving wheels, or the swish of swiftly passing belts. A freight was cutting out cars in the yards. It was rather noisy and bumped discordantly in and out of the sidings.