ALF an hour later Garner came in. He walked about the room, a half smile on his face, sniffing the air as if with unctuous delight, casting now and then an amused glance at his inattentive partner.

“What do you mean? What are you up to now?” Carson asked, slightly irritated over having his thoughts disturbed.

“She's been here,” Garner answered. “She told me so just now, and I want to inhale the heavenly perfume she left in this disreputable hole. Good Lord, you don't mean that you let her see those rotten slippers of mine! If you'd been half a friend you'd have kicked them out of sight, but you didn't care; you've got on a clean collar and necktie, and that plaster on your alabaster brow would admit you to the highest realm of the elect—provided the door-keeper was a woman and knew how you got your ticket. Huh! I really don't know what will become of me if I associate with you much longer. Your conduct last night upset me. I turned in to bed about two o'clock. Bob Smith was doing night-work at the hotel, and he came in and had to be told the whole thing; and he'd no sooner got to bed than Keith came in, and Bob had to hear his version. I had a corking dime novel, but it was too tame after the racket you went through. The Red Avenger I was trying to get interested in couldn't hold a candle, even in his bareback ride strapped to a wild mustang in a mad dash across a burning prairie, to your horse-block rescue act. What you did was new, and I was there. The burning prairie business has been overdone and the love interest in the Red Avenger was weak, while yours—well!”

Garner sat down in his creaking revolving-chair and thrust his thumbs into the arm-holes of his vest.

“Mine?” Carson said, coldly. “I don't exactly see your point.”

“Well, the love business was there all the same,” Garner laughed, significantly; “for, thrilling as it all was, I had an eye to that. I couldn't keep from wondering how I'd have felt if I'd been in your place and had your chances.”

“My chances!” Dwight frowned. It was plain that he did not like Garner's bold encroachments on his natural reserve.

“Yes, your chances, dang you!” Garner retorted, with a laugh. “Do you know, my boy, that as a psychological proposition, the biggest, most earnest, most credulous-looking ass on earth is the man who comes to a strange town to do his courting and has nothing to do but that one thing, at stated hours through the day or evening, while everybody around him is going about attending to business. I've watched that fellow hanging around the office of the hotel, kicking his heels together to kill time between visits, and in spite of all I've heard about his stability and moral worth I can't respect him. Hang it, if I were in his place and wanted to spend a week here, I'd peddle cigars on the street—I'd certainly have something to occupy my spare time. But I'll be flamdoodled if you didn't give him something to think about last night. Of all things, it strikes me, that could make a man like that sick—sick as a dog at the very stomach of his hopes—would be to see a former sweetheart of his fair charmer standing under shot and shell in front of her ancestral mansion protecting her servants from a howling mob like that, and later to see the defender, with the step of a David with a sling, come traipsing back victorious in her cause, all gummed up with blood and fighting still like hell to keep his friends from choking him to death in sheer admiration. She and Sanders may be engaged, but I'll be dadblamed if I wouldn't be worried if I were in his place.”

“I wish you would let up, Garner,” Dwight said, almost angrily. “I know you mean well, but you don't understand the situation, and I have told you before that I don't like to talk about it.”

“I did want to tell you how it was rubbed in on him this morning,” Garner said, only half apologetically, “and if you don't care, I'll finish.”

Carson said nothing. Spots of red were on his cheeks, and with a teasing smile Garner went on: “I had stopped to speak to her on the corner just now, when the Major and his Highness from Augusta joined us. The old man was simply bursting with enthusiasm over what you accomplished last night. According to the Major, you were the highest type of Southerner since George Washington, and the obtuse old chap kept turning to Sanders for his confirmation of each and every statement. Sanders was doing it with slow nods and inarticulate grunts, about as readily as a seasick passenger specifies items for his dinner, while Helen stood there blushing like a red rose. Well,” Garner concluded, as he kicked off one of his untied shoes to put on a slipper, “it may be cold comfort to you, viewed under the search-light of all the gossip in the air, but your blond rival is so jealous that the green juice of it is oozing from the pores of his skin.”

“It isn't fair to him to look at it as you are,” Dwight said. “Under the same circumstances he could have taken my place.”

“Under the same circumstances, yes,” Garner grinned. “But it is circumstances that make things what they are in this world, and I tell you that fellow needs circumstances worse than any man I ever saw. He is worried. I stopped and watched him as he walked on with her, and I declare it looked to me like he kicked himself under his long coat at every step. Say, look! Isn't that Pole Baker across the street? The fellow behind the gray horse. Yes, that's who it is. I'll call him. He may have news from the mountains.”

Answering the summons, Baker led his horse across the street to where the two friends stood waiting on the edge of the pavement.

“Have they heard of the arrest over there, Pole?” Garner asked.

“Yes,” the farmer drawled out. “I was at George Wilson's store this morning, where a big gang was waiting for food supplies from their homes. Dan Willis fetched the report—by-the-way, fellows, just between us three, I'll bet he was the skunk that fired that shot. I'm pretty sure of it, from what I've picked up from some of his pals.”

“But what are they going to do?” Carson asked, anxiously.

“That's exactly what I come in town to tell you,” answered the mountaineer. “They are taking entirely a new tack. A report has leaked out that Sam Dudlow was seen prowling about Johnson's just 'fore dark the night of the murder, and they are dead on his track. They are concentrating their forces to catch him, and, since Pete Warren is safe in jail, they say they are going to let 'im stay thar awhile anyway.”

“Good!” Garner cried, rubbing his hands together. “We've got two chances, now, my boy—to prove Pete innocent at court or by their catching the right man. In my opinion, Dudlow is the coon that did the Job, and I believe he did it alone. Pete is too chicken-hearted and he's been too well brought up. Now let's get to work. You go talk to the prisoner, Carson, and put him through that honeyfugling third degree of yours. He'll confess if he did it, and if he did, may the Lord have mercy on his soul! I won't help defend him.”

“That's whar I stand,” Pole Baker said. “It's enough trouble savin' innocent niggers these days without bothering over the guilty. Shyster lawyers tryin' to protect the bad ones for a little fee is at the bottom of all this lawlessness anyway.”