He was only the hand applying the rigid rule of the law. The danger was with the jury; there lay the peril to be avoided. The jury! how they hated it and feared it! and of right, for none knew better than they that whenever, and where-ever, and however men stop to probe for it, they always find, far down in the human heart, a great love of common right and fair dealing that is as deep-seated and abiding as the very springs of life. VI--THE SHERIFF OF GULLMORE _[The crime of embezzlement here dealt with is statutory. The venue of this story could have been laid in many other States; the statutes are similar to a degree. See the Code of West Virginia; also the late case of The State vs. Bolin, 19 Southwestern Reporter, 650; also the long list of ancient cases in Russell on Crimes, 2d volume.]_ I. IT is hard luck, Colonel," said the broker, "but you are are not the only one skinned in the deal; the best of them caught it to-day. By Jupiter! the pit was like Dante's Inferno!" "Yes, it's gone, I reckon," muttered the Colonel, shutting his teeth down tight on his cigar; "I guess the devil wins every two out of three." "Well," said the broker, turning to his desk, "it is the fortune of war." "No, young man," growled the Colonel, "it is the blasted misfortune of peace. I have never had any trouble with the fortune of war. I could stand on an ace high and win with war. It is peace that queers me. Here in the fag-end of the nineteenth century, I, Colonel Moseby Allen, sheriff of Gull-more County, West Virginia, go up against another man's game,--yes, and go up in the daytime. Say, young man, it feels queer at the mellow age of forty-nine, after you have been in the legislature of a great commonwealth, and at the very expiration of your term as sheriff of the whitest and the freest county in West Virginia,--I say it feels queer, after all those high honors, to be suddenly reminded that you need to be accompanied by a business chaperon." The Colonel stood perfectly erect and delivered his oration with the fluency and the abandon of a southern orator. When he had finished, he bowed low to the broker, pulled his big slouch hat down on his forehead, and stalked out of the office and down the steps to the street. Colonel Moseby Allen was built on the decided lines of a southern mountaineer. He was big and broad-shouldered, but he was not well proportioned. His body was short and heavy, while his legs were long. His eyes were deep-set and shone like little brown beads. On the whole, his face indicated cunning, bluster, and rashness. The ward politician would have recognized him among a thousand as a kindred spirit, and the professional gambler would not have felt so sure of himself with such a face across the table from him.