rmous drooping moustache, the latter reddish in colour
and streaked with gray, like his thinning, carefully brushed hair. His
age was hard to determine. Somewhere around forty-five, George decided,
as he regarded with covert interest Ruthven Gully, Esq.,
gentleman-rancher and Justice of the Peace for the district.

The two Justices took their places with magisterial decorum, the
witnesses seated themselves again, and, all being ready, the sergeant
opened the court with its time-honoured formula.

The inspector glanced over the various "informations" and handed them
over to his confrere for perusal. A brief whispered colloquy ensued
between them, and then the local justice settled himself back in his
chair, chin in hand. Inspector Kilbride addressed the prisoner who had
remained standing between Yorke and Redmond, and in a clear, passionless
voice proceeded to read out the several charges.

"Do you wish to ask for a remand, Moran?" he enquired, "to enable you to
procure counsel?"

"No, sir!" Moran's sullen, insolent eyes suddenly encountering a
dangerous, steely glare from Kilbride's gray orbs he wilted and
immediately dropped his belligerent attitude. "No use me hirin' a
mouthpiece," he added, "as I'm a-goin' t' plead guilty t' all them
charges."

"Ah!" The inspector thoughtfully conned over the "informations" once
more. "Sergeant Slavin," said he presently, "what are the particulars of
this man's disorderly conduct?"

He listened awhile to the sergeant's evidence, occasionally asking a
question or two, but Mr. Gully remained in the same silent, brooding,
inscrutable attitude which he had adopted at the commencement of the
proceedings. Though apparently listening keenly, his shadowy eyes
betrayed no interest whatever in the case.

Of that face Yorke had once remarked to Slavin: "That beggar's mug fairly
haunts me sometimes. . . . He's a good fellow, Gully,--but, you
know--when he gets that brooding look on his face . . . he's the living
personification of a western Eugene Aram."

And Slavin, engaged in shredding a pipeful of tobacco had mumbled
absently "So?--Ujin Airum!--I du not mind th' ould shtiff--fwhat was his
reg'minthal number?"

The sergeant finished his evidence; Kilbride swung round to his
fellow-justice once more and they held a whispered consultation, the
latter making emphatic gestures throughout the colloquy. This ending the
inspector turned to the prisoner.

"You have pleaded guil