ook on a singular interest, and
if such a capacious establishment as it actually was might seem
superfluous in Arcadia it must be remembered that in seasons of the
year the lumberjacks rolled in from the northern parts with six months'
wages and a great thirst that demanded to be quenched, and a perfectly
natural and well meaning desire to offer combat at sight, which they
generally did. Then, too, there were fugitives from justice who
slipped across the river by night in canoes, and miners from the silver
country far to the west, and sometimes crime was also the product of
isolation.

Manson, a tall man, broad, dark, and heavy voiced, seemed by nature
designed to meet just such contingencies. Outwardly he was the epitome
of authority and inwardly he had a mind as stiff as his back. In his
own domain he was as Jove on Olympus, and when he moved abroad he was a
perambulating reminder of the strong arm of the law. The jail was
conveniently arranged to hold the court room on an upper story, so that
Manson could pop a prisoner up out of his cell to be tried and
sentenced, and pop him back forthwith, and all the time the unfortunate
was, so to speak, one of the family and continually under the paternal
eye.

Had a listener been outside the door, he would have gleaned that the
mayor's visit was, in this case, not as amicable as that just made to
Worden. He talked long and arduously, but every now and then Manson's
deep bass boomed out heavy with argument, and his massive fist crashed
ponderously on the table. Presently Filmer drew a long breath and,
stepping out on the trim gravel path, glanced up quizzically at the
chief constable who looked as though enthroned on his own doorstep.

"Mr. Mayor," came the deep voice, "I don't take any stock in your
scheme. It's no good and there's a nigger in the fence somewhere. I
was right before, and I am right this time."

Filmer laughed softly. "Well, John, you're a hell of a good jailer, we
all admit that, but I don't put you down as any permanent prophet.
However, you will come, won't you?"

Manson nodded, a nod which said that though he would come it could not
affect his fixed opinion, whereupon the mayor laughed again, and set
off to finish his afternoon pilgrimage, and it is but fair to follow
him a little further since he was a shrewd man, active and courageous,
and though he did not know it, the result of the various visits he made
that day was to be imprinted indel