still yielded
to his father's earnest plea that he should wait. He understood, and
would restrain himself until Larry was satisfied, and the trial ended.
Still the examination went on.

"Miss Ballard, you admit that Peter Junior was lame when last you saw
him, and you observe that the prisoner has no lameness, and you admit
that you bound up a wound which had been inflicted on the head of
Richard Kildene, and here you see the scar upon the prisoner; can you
still on your sacred oath declare this man to be the son of the
plaintiff?"

"Yes!" She looked earnestly at the prisoner. "It is not the same head
and it is not the same scar." Again she extended her hands toward the
jury pleadingly and then toward the prisoner. "It is not by people's
legs we know them,--nor by their scars--it is by themselves--by--by
their souls. Oh! I know you, Peter! I know you!"

With the first petulance Milton Hibbard had shown during the trial he
now turned to the prisoner's counsel and said: "Take the witness."

"No cross-examination?" asked Nathan Goodbody, with a smile.

"No."

Then Betty flung one look back at the Elder, and fled to her mother
and hid her flushed face on Mary Ballard's bosom.

Now for the first time Richard could take an interest in the trial
merely for his own and Peter Junior's sake. He saw Nathan Goodbody
lean over and say a few words hurriedly to the prisoner, then rise and
slightly lift his hand as if to make a special request.

"If the court please, the accused desires permission to tell his own
story. May he be sworn on his own behalf?"

Permission being given, the prisoner rose and walked to the witness
chair, and having been sworn by the clerk to tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, began his statement.

Standing there watching him, and listening, Richard felt his heart
throb with the old friendship for this comrade of his childhood, his
youth, and his young manhood, in school, in college, and, at last,
tramping side by side on long marches, camping together, sleeping side
by side through many a night when the morrow might bring for them
death or wounds, victory or imprisonment,--sharing the same emotions
even until the first great passion of their lives cut them asunder.

Brought up without father or mother, this friendship had meant more to
Richard than to most men. As he heard his cousin's plea he was only
held from hurrying forward with extended arms by Larry's whispered
wor