“Very straight, Joe. You might put in that the prosecuting attorney, Frank Woods, is on his first term and after laurels; and that, unluckily, there have been three murders in this locality inside the year, and by hook or crook all three of the men got off with nothing but a few years at Anamosa; and public sentiment, in consequence, is pretty well stirred up, and not so particular about who it hits as hitting _somebody_; and that poor Sol had a chump of a lawyer—and you have the state of things.” “But why are you so sure he wasn’t guilty?” said Ruth. The shocked look on her face was fading. She was thinking her own thoughts, not Amos’s, Raker decided. “Partly on account of the dog,” said Amos. “First thing Sol said when they took him up was, ‘Johnny’s dog’s hurt too’; and true enough we found him (for I was round) crawling down the street with a stab in him. Now, I says, here’s a test right at hand; if the dog was stabbed by this young feller he’ll tell of it when he sees him, and I fetched him right up to Sol; but, bless my soul, the dog kinder wagged his tail! And he’s taken to Sol from the first. Another thing, they never found the knife that did it; said Sol might have throwed it into the river. Tommy rot!—I mean it ain’t likely. Sol wasn’t in no condition to throw a knife a block or two!” “But if not he, who else?” said Ruth. Amos was at a loss to answer her exactly, and yet in language that he considered suitable “to a nice young lady”; but he managed to convey to her an idea of the villanous locality where the unfortunate policeman met his death; and he told her that from the first, judging by the character of the blow (“no American man—a decent man too, like Sol—would have jabbed a man from behind that way; that’s a Dago blow, with a Dago knife!”), he had suspected a certain Italian woman, who “boarded” in the house beneath whose evil walls the man was slain. He suspected her because Johnny had arrested “a great friend of hers” who turned out to be “wanted,” and in the end was sent to the penitentiary, and the woman had sworn revenge. “That’s all,” said Amos, “except that when I looked her up, she had skipped. I have a good man shadowing her, though, and he has found her.” “And that was what convinced you?” “That and the man himself. Suppose we take a look at him. Then I’ll have to go to Des Moines. I suspected this would come, and I’m all ready.” So the toilet was for the Governor and not for her; Ruth took shame to herself for a full minute while Raker was speaking. Amos’s dejection came from a cause worthy of such a man as he. Perhaps all her fancies.... “That will suit,” Raker was saying. “He has been asking for you. I told him.” “Thank you, Joe,” said Amos, gratefully. “I don’t propose to leave _all_ the dirty jobs to you,” growled Raker. And he added under his breath to Ruth, when Amos had stopped behind to strap a bag, “Amos is going to take it hard.”