The story is told. It is all true, every sickening detail. Other stories just like it, some of them infinitely more pitiful, can be written daily by anyone who will peer into the cages of Covington jail. There is nothing to be done; nothing _can_ be done. It is the law of the land--the just, holy, beneficent law, which is no respecter of persons. II BUD TILDEN, MAIL-THIEF "That's Bud Tilden, the worst of the bunch," said the jail Warden--the warden with the sliced ear and the gorilla hands. "Reminds me of a cat'mount I tried to tame once, only he's twice as ugly." As he spoke, he pointed to a prisoner in a slouch hat clinging half-way up the steel bars of his cage, his head thrust through as far as his cheeks would permit, his legs spread apart like the letter A. "What's he here for?" I asked. "Bobbin' the U-nited States mail." "Where?" "Up in the Kentucky mountains, back o' Bug Holler. Laid for the carrier one night, held him up with a gun, pulled him off his horse, slashed the bottom out o' the mail-bag with his knife, took what letters he wanted, and lit off in the woods, cool as a chunk o' ice. Oh! I tell ye, he's no sardine; you kin see that without my tellin' ye. They'll railroad him, sure." "When was he arrested?" "Last month--come down in the November batch. The dep'ties had a circus 'fore they got the irons on him. Caught him in a clearin' 'bout two miles back o' the Holler. He was up in a corn-crib with a Winchester when they opened on him. Nobody was hurted, but they would a-been if they'd showed the top o' their heads, for he's strong as a bull and kin scalp a squirrel at fifty yards. They never would a-got him if they hadn't waited till dark and smoked him out, so one on 'em told me." He spoke as if the prisoner had been a rattlesnake or a sheep-stealing wolf. The mail-thief evidently overheard, for he dropped, with a cat-like movement, to the steel floor and stood looking at us through the bars from under his knit eyebrows, his eyes watching our every movement.