hew when they try to figure out John Wood done that. I only hope
I'll have the luck to be on that case--all hands on the jury whisper
together a minute, and then clear him, right on the spot, and then
shake hands with him all 'round!"

"But something is worrying you," she said. "What is it? You have
looked it since noon."

"Oh, nothin'," he replied--"only George Cahoon came up to-noon to say
that he was goin' West next week, and that he would have to have that
money he let me have a while ago. And where to get it--I don't know."

III.

The court-room was packed. John Wood's trial was drawing to its close.
Eli was on the jury. Some one had advised the prosecuting attorney, in
a whisper, to challenge him, but he had shaken his head and said:

"Oh, I couldn't afford to challenge him for that; it would only leak
out, and set the jury against me. I'll risk his standing out against
this evidence."

The trial had been short. It had been shown how the little building
of the bank had been entered. Skilled locksmiths from the city had
testified that the safe was opened with a key, and that the lock was
broken afterward, from the inside--plainly to raise the theory of a
forcible entry by strangers.

It had been proved that the only key in existence, not counting that
kept by the president, was in the possession of Wood, who was filling,
for a few days, the place of the cashier--the president's brother--in
his absence. It had been shown that Wood was met, at one o'clock of
the night in question, crossing the fields toward his home, from the
direction of the bank, with a large wicker basket slung over his
shoulders, returning, as he had said, from eel-spearing in Harlow's
Creek; and there was other circumstantial evidence.

Mr. Clark, the president of the bank, had won the sympathy of every
one by the modest way in which, with eye-glasses in hand, he had
testified to the particulars of the loss which had left him penniless,
and had ruined others whose little all was in his hands. And then, in
reply to the formal question, he had testified, amid roars of laughter
from the court-room, that it was not he who robbed the safe. At this,
even the judge and Wood's lawyer had not restrained a smile.

This had left the guilt with Wood. His lawyer, an inexperienced young
attorney--who had done more or less business for the bank, and would
hardly have ventured to defend this case but that the president had