“You ain't goin' to put me in thar, Aleck! Not in that hole! Not just for a little drop o' whiskey. It was _your_ whiskey, too, Aleck. I was drinkin' yo' health, Aleck. You know I was.” “The Judge won't know anything about it. He 'll never think of it again,” pleaded several of Turkle's friends. “You know he has ordered a drunken man put there before and never said any more about it--just told you to discharge him next day.” Turkle stiffened up with hope. “Yes, Aleck.” He leaned on the Sheriff's arm heavily. “He 's drunk himself--I don't mean that, I mean _you 're_ drunk--oh, no--I mean _I'm_ drunk. Everybody 's drunk.” “Yes, you 've gone and called me a drunkard before the Court. Now I 'm goin' to show you.” Thompson rattled his big keys again savagely. Turkle caught him with both hands. “Oh, Aleck, don't talk that a-way,” he pleaded in a tremulous voice. “Don't talk that a-way!” He burst into tears and flung his arms around the Sheriff's neck. He protested that he had never, seen him take a drink in his life; he would go and tell the Judge so; if necessary, he would swear to it on a Bible. “Aleck, you know I love you better than anybody in this world--except my wife and children. Yes, better than them--better than Jinny. Jinny will tell you that herself. Oh! Aleck!” He clung to him and sobbed! His friends indorsed this and declared that they would bring him back if the Judge demanded his presence. They would “promise to bring him back dead or alive at any time he sent for him.” As Turkle and his friends were always warm supporters of the Sheriff, a fact of which they did not fail to remind him, Thompson was not averse to letting him off, especially as he felt tolerably sure that the Judge would, as they said, forget all about the matter, or, if he remembered it, would, as he had done before, simply order him to discharge the prisoner. So, after dragging the culprit to the jail door to scare him well and make his clemency the more impressive, he turned him over to the others on condition that he would mount his mule and go straight home and not come back again during the term. This Turkle was so glad to do that he struck out at once for the stable at what Thompson called a “turkey trot,” and five minutes later he was galloping down the road, swinging mightily on his sorrel mule, but whipping for life. That night Thompson was much toasted about the court-house for his humanity. Several of his admirers, indeed, got into somewhat the same condition that Turkle had been in. Even Dick Creel, who had come to court that day, lapsed from virtue and fell a victim to the general hilarity. III