id not go to jail, but, after a sharp reprimand, he was sworn
as a witness for the defence, and excluded from the courtroom.

When he took the witness-stand later, it was with a recovered
composure--and his straightforward story went far toward shaking the
impression Saul had left behind him--yet not far enough.

He realized, with black chagrin, that as long as he had sat there
steadfastly calm, he had been to Asa a tower of strength--but that when
he had broken out he had forfeited that privilege--and left his kinsman
unsuccoured.

At last the Commonwealth closed, and Asa himself came to the stand. Had
he been possessed of a lawyer's experience he could hardly have evaded
more skilfully the snares set in his path, as with imperturbable
gallantry he met his skilled hecklers. The even calmness of his velvety
eyes became a matter of newspaper report, and when he had finished his
direct testimony and had been turned over to the enemy, the fashion in
which he cared for himself also found its way into the news columns.

Asa kept before him the realization that he had been advertised as a
"bad man" and an assassin. Just now he was intent upon impressing the
jury with his urbane proof against exasperation, even when the invective
of insinuation mounted to ferocity,

"You have known the witness, Saul Fulton, for years, have you not?"
demanded the cross-examiner.

"I've known him all my life."

"Can you state any motive he should have for offering malicious and
false evidence against you?"

"Any reason for his lyin'?"

The prisoner gazed at the barking attorney with a calm seriousness and
replied suavely:

"No, sir, only that he's swearin' to save his own neck from the
rope--an' thet's a right pithy reason, I reckon."

Yet all the while that he was making his steep, uphill fight, Asa was
feeling a secret disquiet growing to an obsession within him. He could
not forget that some one upon whose reassurance he had leaned had been
banished from that place where his enemies were bent upon his undoing.
He felt as if the red lantern had been quenched on a dangerous
crossing--and the psychology of the thing gnawed at his overtried
nerves.

Boone's freckled face and wide blue eyes had seemed to stand for
serenity, where all else was hectic and fevered.

To Asa, that intangible yet tranquillizing support had meant what the
spider meant to Bruce, and now it had been taken from him.

The bearded attorney who had destroyed