t feverish
excitement against Green, to assume such a questionable position. It
may do him a great wrong."

"Did Willy Hammond speak only idle words, when he accused Green of
having followed him like a thirsty bloodhound?--of having robbed, and
cheated, and debased him from the beginning?"

"He was terribly excited at the moment."

"Yes," said I, "no ear that heard his words could for an instant doubt
that they were truthful utterances, wrung from a maddened heart."

My earnest, positive manner had its effect upon Slade. He knew that
what I asserted, the whole history of Green's intercourse with young
Hammond would prove; and he had, moreover, the guilty consciousness of
being a party to the young man's ruin. His eyes cowered beneath the
steady gaze I fixed upon him. I thought of him as one implicated in the
murder, and my thoughts must have been visible in my face.

"One murder will not justify another," said he.

"There is no justification for murder on any plea," was my response.

"And yet, if these infuriated men find Green, they will murder him."

"I hope not. Indignation at a horrible crime has fearfully excited the
people. But I think their sense of justice is strong enough to prevent
the consequences you apprehend."

"I would not like to be in Green's shoes," said the landlord, with an
uneasy movement.

I looked him closely in the face. It was the punishment of the man's
crime that seemed so fearful in his eyes; not the crime itself. Alas!
how the corrupting traffic had debased him.

My words were so little relished by Slade, that he found some ready
excuse to leave me. I saw little more of him during the day.

As evening began to fall, the gambler's unsuccessful pursuers, one
after another, found their way to the tavern, and by the time night had
fairly closed in, the bar-room was crowded with excited and angry men,
chafing over their disappointment, and loud in their threats of
vengeance. That Green had made good his escape, was now the general
belief; and the stronger this conviction became, the more steadily did
the current of passion begin to set in a new direction. It had become
known to every one that, besides Green and young Hammond, Judge Lyman
and Slade were in the room engaged in playing cards. The merest
suggestion as to the complicity of these two men with Green in ruining
Hammond, and thus driving him mad, was enough to excite strong feelings
against them; and now that the mob had bee