er, justice of the peace. The squire was a large, fat man,
clothed in rusty black, with a carelessly knotted string tie pendent
beneath a rumpled turn-down collar. He had a smooth-shaven, fat
face, lighted by shrewd and kindly eyes, which gleamed at you now
through, now over, his glasses. When the party entered he was
writing, and merely looked up under his big eyebrows long enough to
wave them all to chairs.

Jim sat down, with the constable behind him and his father at his
left, and studied the man in whose hands he thought that his fate
rested. He watched the squire's pen go from paper to ink, ink to
paper, and listened to its scratch, scratch, and to the buzz of a
big fly against the dirty window-pane. Ashamed to look at any one,
he looked at the lawyer's big ink-well--a great, circular affair of
mottled brown wood. It had several openings, each one with its own
little cork attached with a short string to the side of the stand.
He had never seen one like it before.

Then some one entered the room. Jim, looking sidewise, recognized
Jake Hibbard, and began covertly to study his face. He knew that
this flabby-faced, dirty man, with the little screwed-up eyes, and
the big screwed-up mouth, stained brown at the corners with tobacco,
was Pete Lamoury's lawyer. Familiar for many years to his
contemptuous young eyes, Jake now looked sinister and dangerous.
What were these men going to do to him?

Amid his fluttering emotions and rushing thoughts one thing only
stood fixed and clear: he would not tell on his father. Some day,
when all trouble was past, he would let his father know that he knew
all the time. Then he guessed his father would be sorry and ashamed.
Now, since his father would not take him into his confidence, he
would not pretend he did the shooting. That would be his only
revenge.

Finally, Squire Tucker, pushing his writing aside, ran his fingers
through the great mass of his tumbled gray hair, and looked
quizzically at Jim over his glasses. "So this," he said, "is the
hardened ruffian of whom our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. Lamoury,
complains?"

And indeed Jim, although stubborn, did not seem very dangerous.

The squire looked about the room.

"Is he represented by counsel?" he asked.

"No, I represent him," said Mr. Edwards.

"The charge against him is assault with intent to kill, I believe?"
and he looked with demure inquiry at Jake Hibbard, who nodded with a
wrath-clouded face. Tucker was not