"I'll tell you what they do—_in Kansas_!" It was great. There was a piece about it in the paper the next morning and prospective grand jurymen slapped their legs and remarked, one to the other: "That Pecos Dalhart is a proper fighting fool, ain't he? I reckon Old Crit just jumped him into that racket up the river in order to git him out of the country. It's a dam' shame, too, when you think how many Crit has stole!" But alas, neither public praise nor blame could open up the bars and let Pecos out of jail. He was held by a power higher than any man—the power of the Law, which, because it has endured so long and is, in fact, all we have, is deemed for that reason sacred. And the law was busy—it is always busy—and behind. Well, Pecos didn't know much about it, except what he had read in the _Voice of Reason_, but as he heard the ponderous wheels of the law grinding about him, saw yeggs escape by cleverly devised tales and Mexicans soaked because they were slow and dumb, he wondered if that was the only way they could make a stagger at justice. A drunken cowboy had seized a gay man-about-town and taken his pen-knife from his pocket—grand larceny of the person, he was sentenced to seven years. Another drunken reprobate had beaten up the roustabout in a saloon—and got thirty days for assault and battery. Both drunk and both bad, but one had played to hard luck. He had taken property, the other had hurt a man. Pecos saw when it was too late where he had marred his game—he should have beaten Old Crit instead of branding his calf. In sombre silence he listened day by day as the jail-lawyers—wise criminals who had been in the toils before—cooked up stories to explain away misdeeds; he watched day by day as the prisoners came down from their trial, some with bowed heads or cursing blindly, others laughing hysterically as they scuttled out the door; and many a man who had sworn to a lie went free where simple-minded sinners plead guilty and took their fate. Some there were who had boggled their stories because their dull minds could not compass the deceit; the district attorney had torn them to flinders, raging and threatening them with his finger for the perjured fools they were, and the judge had given them the limit for swearing to a lie. Even in jail it was the poor and lowly who were punished, while the jail-lawyers and those who could afford the petty dollar that hired them took shelter behind the law. Yes, it was all a game, and the best man won—if he held the cards.