his excessive
boyishness,--he was a mere lad,--and his smooth cheek promised a blush
as willingly as the cheek of a maid.

Imber was drawn to him at once. The fire leaped into his eyes at sight
of a sabre slash that scarred his cheek. He ran a withered hand down
the young fellow's leg and caressed the swelling thew. He smote the
broad chest with his knuckles, and pressed and prodded the thick
muscle-pads that covered the shoulders like a cuirass. The group had
been added to by curious passers-by--husky miners, mountaineers,
and frontiersmen, sons of the long-legged and broad-shouldered
generations. Imber glanced from one to another, then he spoke aloud in
the Whitefish tongue.

"What did he say?" asked Dickensen.

"Him say um all the same one man, dat p'liceman," Jimmy interpreted.

Little Dickensen was little, and what of Miss Travis, he felt sorry
for having asked the question.

The policeman was sorry for him and stepped into the breach. "I fancy
there may be something in his story. I'll take him up to the captain
for examination. Tell him to come along with me, Jimmy."

Jimmy indulged in more throaty spasms, and Imber grunted and looked
satisfied.

"But ask him what he said, Jimmy, and what he meant when he took hold
of my arm."

So spoke Emily Travis, and Jimmy put the question and received the
answer.

"Him say you no afraid," said Jimmy.

Emily Travis looked pleased.

"Him say you no _skookum_, no strong, all the same very soft like
little baby. Him break you, in um two hands, to little pieces. Him
t'ink much funny, very strange, how you can be mother of men so big,
so strong, like dat p'liceman."

Emily Travers kept her eyes up and unfaltering, but her cheeks
were sprayed with scarlet. Little Dickensen blushed and was quite
embarrassed. The policeman's face blazed with his boy's blood.

"Come along, you," he said gruffly, setting his shoulder to the crowd
and forcing a way.

Thus it was that Imber found his way to the Barracks, where he made
full and voluntary confession, and from the precincts of which he
never emerged.

Imber looked very tired. The fatigue of hopelessness and age was
in his face. His shoulders drooped depressingly, and his eyes were
lack-lustre. His mop of hair should have been white, but sun and
weatherbeat had burned and bitten it so that it hung limp and lifeless
and colorless. He took no interest in what went on around him. The
courtroom was jammed with the men of the