do would be for you to take him aside and do the best you can for him."

Court, jury, and witness then adjourned to the veranda, while Samuelson
led his client aside to the Court House cells. An hour passed ere the
lawyer returned alone. Mutely the audience questioned.

"May it p-p-please the c-court," said Samuel-son, "my client's case is
a b-b-b-bad one--a d-d-amn bad one. You told me to do the b-b-best I
c-could for him, judge, so I've jest given him y-your b-b-bay gelding,
an' told him to light out for healthier c-climes, my p-p-professional
opinion being he'd be hanged quicker'n h-h-hades if he dallied here.
B-by this time my client's 'bout fifteen mile out yonder somewheres.
That was the b-b-best I could do for him, may it p-p-please the court."

The young man, escaping punishment in lieu of the prisoner, made his
fortune ere five years.

Other voices followed, with equally wondrous tales of riata-throwing
in Mexico and Arizona, of gambling at army posts in Texas, of newspaper
wars waged in godless Chicago (I could not help being interested, but
they were not pretty tricks), of deaths sudden and violent in Montana
and Dakota, of the loves of half-breed maidens in the South, and
fantastic huntings for gold in mysterious Alaska. Above all, they
told the story of the building of old San Francisco, when the "finest
collection of humanity on God's earth, sir, started this town, and the
water came up to the foot of Market Street." Very terrible were some
of the tales, grimly humorous the others, and the men in broadcloth and
fine linen who told them had played their parts in them.

"And now and again when things got too bad they would toll the city
bell, and the Vigilance Committee turned out and hanged the suspicious
characters. A man didn't begin to be suspected in those days till he had
committed at least one unprovoked murder," said a calm-eyed, portly old
gentleman.

I looked at the pictures around me, the noiseless, neat-uniformed waiter
behind me, the oak-ribbed ceiling above, the velvet carpet beneath.
It was hard to realize that even twenty years ago you could see a man
hanged with great pomp. Later on I found reason to change my opinion.
The tales gave me a headache and set me thinking. How in the world
was it possible to take in even one thousandth of this huge, roaring,
many-sided continent? In the tobacco-scented silence of the sumptuous
library lay Professor Bryce's book on the American Republic.