o tell how he had left Pete Jones's,
Mr. Jones's bed being uncomfortable; how he had walked through the
pasture; how he had seen three men on horseback: how he had noticed the
sorrel with the white left forefoot and white nose; how he had seen Dr.
Small; how, after his return, he had heard some one enter the house, and
how he had recognized the horse the next morning. "There," said Ralph
desperately, leveling his finger at Pete, "there is a man who will yet
see the inside of a penitentiary, I shall not live to see it, but the
rest of you will." Pete quailed. Ralph's speech could not of course
break the force of the testimony against him. But it had its effect, and
it had effect enough to alarm Bronson, who rose and said:

"I should like to ask the prisoner at the bar one question."

"Ask me a dozen," said Hartsook, looking more like a king than a
criminal.

"Well, then, Mr. Hartsook. You need not answer unless you choose; but
what prompted you to take the direction you did in your walk on that
evening?"

This shot brought Ralph down. To answer this question truly would attach
to friendless Hannah Thomson some of the disgrace that now belonged to
him.

"I decline to answer," said Ralph.

"Of course, I do not want the prisoner to criminate himself," said
Bronson significantly.

During this last passage Bud had come in, but, to Ralph's disappointment
he remained near the door, talking to Walter Johnson, who had come with
him. The magistrates put their heads together to fix the amount of bail,
and, as they differed, talked for some minutes. Small now for the first
time thought best to make a move in his own proper person. He could
hardly have been afraid of Ralph's acquittal. He may have been a little
anxious at the manner in which he had been mentioned, and at the
significant look of Ralph, and he probably meant to excite indignation
enough against the school-master to break the force of his speech, and
secure the lynching of the prisoner, chiefly by people outside his gang.
He rose and asked the court in gentlest tones to hear him. He had no
personal interest in this trial, except his interest in the welfare of
his old schoolmate, Mr. Hartsook. He was grieved and disappointed to
find the evidence against him so damaging and he would not for the world
add a feather to it, if it were not that his own name had been twice
alluded to by the defendant, and by his friend, and perhaps his
confederate, John Pearson. He wa