"Keep yer shirt on. You'll git the truth--git the whole of it. Git what you ain't lookin' for. There ain't no liars up in our mountains 'cept them skunks in Gov'ment pay you fellers send up to us, and things like Hank Halliday. He's wuss nor any skunk. A skunk's a varmint that don't stink tell ye meddle with him, but Hank Halliday stinks all the time. He's one o' them fellers that goes 'round with books in their pockets with picters in 'em that no girl oughter see and no white man oughter read. He gits 'em down to Louisville. There ain't a man in Pondville won't tell ye it's true. He shoved one in my outside pocket over to Pondville when I warn't lookin', the day 'fore I held up this man Bowditch, and went and told the fellers 'round the tavern that I had it. They come and pulled it out and had the laugh on me, and then he began to talk and said he'd write to Jennetta and send her one o' the picters by mail and tell her he'd got it out o' my coat, and he did. Sam Kellers seen Halliday with the letter and told me after Bowditch had got it in his bag. I laid for Bowditch at Pondville Corners, but he got past somehow, and I struck in behind Bill Somers's mill, and crossed the mountain and caught up with him as he was ridin' through the piece o' woods near the clearin'. I didn't know but he'd try to shoot, and I didn't want to hurt him, so I crep' up behind and threw him in the bushes, cut a hole in the bag, and got the letter. That's the only one I wanted and that's the only one I took. I didn't rob no mail, but I warn't goin' to hev an honest, decent girl like Jennetta git that letter, and there warn't no other way." The stillness that followed was broken only by the Judge's voice. "What became of that letter?" "I got it. Want to see it?" "Yes." Bud felt in his pockets as if looking for something, and then, with an expression as if he had suddenly remembered, remarked: "No, I ain't got none. They stole my knife when they 'rested me." Then facing the courtroom, he added: "Somebody lend me a knife, and pass me my hat over there 'longside them sheriffs." [Illustration: "I threw him in the bushes and got the letter."] The court-crier took the hat from one of the deputies, and the clerk, in answer to a nod of assent from the Judge, passed Bud an ink-eraser with a steel blade in one end. The audience now had the appearance of one watching a juggler perform a trick. Bud grasped the hat in one hand, turned back the brim, inserted the point of the knife between the hat lining and the hat itself and drew out a yellow envelope stained with dirt and perspiration. "Here it is. I ain't opened it, and what's more, they didn't find it when they searched me;" and he looked again toward the deputies. The Judge leaned forward in his seat and said: "Hand me the letter." The letter was passed up by the court-crier, every eye following it. His Honor examined the envelope, and, beckoning to Halliday, said: "Is this your letter?"