l it ter me, folkses!" he cried wildly; "tell it ter me,
somebody! Will they keep me hyar all the same? An' when will I see
G'liath Mounting agin, an' be whar Melissy air?"

He had burst into tears, and there was a murmur of sympathy in the
crowd.

"Oh, that lets you out, I reckon, youngster," said Stebbins. "I'm glad
enough of it for one."

The old man turned his solemnly accusing green spectacles on Stebbins,
and it seemed to Barney that he spoke with no less solemnly accusing a
voice.

"He ought never to have been let in."

Stebbins replied, rather eagerly, Barney thought, "Why, there was enough
against that boy to have clapped him in jail, and maybe convicted him,
if this man hadn't turned State's evidence."

"We hed the fac's agin him,--dead agin him," chimed in Jim Dow.

"That just shows how much danger an innocent boy was in; it seems to me
that somebody ought to have been more careful," the old man protested.

"That's so!" came in half a dozen voices from the crowd.

Barney was surprised to see how many friends he had now, when a moment
before he had had none. But he ought to have realized that there is a
great difference between _being_ a young martyr, and _seeming_ a young
thief.

"I want to see the little fellow out of this," said the old man with the
terrible spectacles.

He saw him out of it in a short while.

There was an examination before a magistrate, in which Barney was
discharged on the testimony of Jeff Carew, who was produced and swore
that he had never before seen the boy, that he was not among the gang of
burglars who had robbed Blenkins's store and dwelling-house, and that he
had had no part in helping to conceal the plunder. In opposition to
this, the mere finding of a scrap of Barney's coat close to the
Conscripts' Hollow seemed now of slight consequence, although it could
not be accounted for.

When the trial was over, the old man with the green spectacles took
Barney to his house, gave him something to eat, and saw him start out
homeward.

As Barney plodded along toward the blue mountains his heart was very
bitter against Nick Gregory, who had lied and thrown suspicion upon him
and brought him into danger. Whenever he thought of it he raised his
clenched fist and shook it. He was a little fellow, but he felt that
with the strength of this grievance he was more than a match for big
Nick Gregory. He would force him to confess the lies that he had told
and his cowardice, and a