emboldened by invisibility shouted imprecations at the prisoner.

"Lynch the cursed Scowrer!" they cried. "Lynch him!" They laughed and
jeered as he was pushed into the police station. After a short, formal
examination from the inspector in charge he was put into the common
cell. Here he found Baldwin and three other criminals of the night
before, all arrested that afternoon and waiting their trial next
morning.

But even within this inner fortress of the law the long arm of the
Freemen was able to extend. Late at night there came a jailer with a
straw bundle for their bedding, out of which he extracted two bottles
of whisky, some glasses, and a pack of cards. They spent a hilarious
night, without an anxious thought as to the ordeal of the morning.

Nor had they cause, as the result was to show. The magistrate could not
possibly, on the evidence, have held them for a higher court. On the
one hand the compositors and pressmen were forced to admit that the
light was uncertain, that they were themselves much perturbed, and that
it was difficult for them to swear to the identity of the assailants;
although they believed that the accused were among them. Cross examined
by the clever attorney who had been engaged by McGinty, they were even
more nebulous in their evidence.

The injured man had already deposed that he was so taken by surprise by
the suddenness of the attack that he could state nothing beyond the
fact that the first man who struck him wore a moustache. He added that
he knew them to be Scowrers, since no one else in the community could
possibly have any enmity to him, and he had long been threatened on
account of his outspoken editorials. On the other hand, it was clearly
shown by the united and unfaltering evidence of six citizens, including
that high municipal official, Councillor McGinty, that the men had been
at a card party at the Union House until an hour very much later than
the commission of the outrage.

Needless to say that they were discharged with something very near to
an apology from the bench for the inconvenience to which they had been
put, together with an implied censure of Captain Marvin and the police
for their officious zeal.

The verdict was greeted with loud applause by a court in which McMurdo
saw many familiar faces. Brothers of the lodge smiled and waved. But
there were others who sat with compressed lips and brooding eyes as the
men filed out of the dock. One of them, a little, d