her way, so he said yes.

Where criminals are too poor to employ counsel the Court selects a poor
but honest young lawyer, who practices on the defendant. I was appointed
that way myself once to defend a man who swears he will kill me as soon
as he gets out of the penitentiary.

William Johnson was peculiarly unfortunate in the election of his
counsel. The man who was appointed to defend him was a very much
overestimated young man who started the movement himself. He was
courageous, however, and perfectly willing to wade in where angels would
naturally hang back. His brain would not have soiled the finest fabric,
but his egotism had a biceps muscle on it like a loaf of Vienna bread.
He was the kind of young man who loves to go and see the drama and
explain it along about five minutes in advance of the company in a loud,
trenchant voice.

He defended William Johnson. Thus in the prime of life, hardly
understanding a word of the trial, stunned, helpless, alone, the latter
began upon his term of five years in the penitentiary. His patient,
gentle face impressed me as it did others, and his very helplessness
thus became his greatest help.

It is not egotism which prompts me to tell here of what followed. It was
but natural that I should go to Judge Blair, who, besides being the most
popular Judge in the West, had, as I knew, a kind heart. He agreed with
me that Johnson's side of the case had not been properly presented and
that the jury had grave doubts about the horses having been worth enough
to constitute a felony even if Johnson had unlawfully taken them. Other
lawyers said that at the worst it was a civil offense, or trover, or
trespass, or wilful negligence, or embezzlement, or conversion, but that
the remedy was by civil process. One lawyer said it was an outrage, and
Charlie Bramel said that if Johnson would put up $50 he would agree to
jerk him out of the jug on a writ of habeas corpus before dinner.

[Illustration]

Seeing how the sentiment ran, I resolved to start a petition for
Johnson's pardon. I got the signatures of the Court, the court
officers, the jury and the leading men of business in the country. Just
as I was about to take it to Gov. Thayer, there was an incident at the
penitentiary. William Johnson had won the hearts of the Warden and the
guards to that extent that he was sent out one afternoon to assist one
of the guards in overseeing the labor of a squad working in a stone
quarry near by. Tak