The day came—Sol’s last day—and there were a hundred demands for Amos’s decision. In the morning he made his last stroke for the prisoner. He told Raker about it. “I found the tool at last,” he said, “in the place you suspected. Dago dagger. I’ve expressed it to Miss Graves and telegraphed her. It’s in _her_ hands now.” “Sol says he ’ain’t quit hoping,” says Raker. “Say, the blizzard flag is out; you don’t think you could put it off for weather, being an outdoor thing, you know?” “No,” says Amos, knitting his black brows; “I know my duty.” Towards night, in one of his many visits to the condemned man, Sol said, “Elly’ll be sure to come back from Des Moines in—in time, if she don’t succeed, won’t she?” “Oh, sure,” said Amos, cheerfully. He spoke in a louder than common voice when he was with Sol; he fought against an inclination to walk on tiptoe, as he saw Raker and the watch doing. He wished Sol would not keep hold of his hand so long each time they shook hands; but he found his hands going out whenever he entered the room. He had a feeling at his heart as if a string were tightening about it and cutting into it: shaking hands seemed to loosen the string. From Sol, Amos went down-stairs to the telephone to call up the depot. The electricity snapped and roared and buzzed, and baffled his ears, but he made out that the Des Moines train had come in two hours late; the morning train was likely to be later, for a storm was raging and the telegraph lines were down. Elly hadn’t come; she couldn’t come in time! Amos changed the call to the telegraph office. Yes, they had a telegram for him. Just received; been ever since noon getting there. From Des Moines. Read it? The sheriff gripped the receiver and flung back his shoulders like a soldier facing the firing-squad. The words penetrated the whir like bullets: “Des Moines, December 8, 189-. Governor refused audience. Has left the city. My sympathy and indignation. T. L. Dennison.” Amos remembered to put the tube up, to ring the bell. He walked out of the office into the parlor; he was not conscious that he walked on tiptoe or that he moved the arm-chair softly as if to avoid making a noise. He sank back into the great leather depths and stared dully about him. “They’ve called my bluff!” he whispered; “there isn’t anything left I can do.” He could not remember that he had ever been in a similar situation, because, although he had had many a buffet and some hard falls from life, never had he been at the end of his devices or his obstinate courage. But now there was nothing, nothing to be done. “By-and-by I will go and tell Sol,” he thought, in a dull way. No; he would let him hope a little longer; the morning would be time enough.... He looked down at his own hands, and a shudder contracted the muscles of his neck, and his teeth met.