Mart Wiley, a deputy sheriff, at a Lost Nation kitchen-dance two
years ago."

"Where's the Lost Nation?"

"It's a term applied to most of the town of Partridgeville in the
northern part of the county--an inaccessible district back in the
mountains peopled with gone-to-seed stock and half-civilized
illiterates who only get into the news when they load up with
squirrel whisky and start a programme of progressive hell. Ruggam
was the local blacksmith."

"What's a kitchen-dance?"

"Ordinarily a kitchen-dance is harmless enough. But the Lost Nation
folks use it as an excuse for a debauch. They gather in some sizable
shack, set the stove out into the yard, soak themselves in aromatic
spirits of deviltry and dance from Saturday night until Monday
noon----"

"And this Ruggam killed a sheriff at one of them?"

"He got into a brawl with another chap about his wife. Someone
passing saw the fight and sent for an officer. Mart Wiley was deputy,
afraid of neither man, God nor devil. Martin had grown disgusted
over the petty crime at these kitchen-dances and started out to
clean up this one right. Hap Ruggam killed him. He must have had help,
because he first got Mart tied to a tree in the yard. Most of the
crowd was pie-eyed by this time, anyhow, and would fight at the drop
of a hat. After tying him securely, Ruggam caught up a billet of
wood and--and killed him with that."

"Why didn't they electrocute him?" demanded young Higgins.

"Well, the murder wasn't exactly premeditated. Hap wasn't himself;
he was drunk--not even able to run away when Sheriff Crumpett
arrived in the neighbourhood to take him into custody. Then there
was Hap's bringing up. All these made extenuating circumstances."

"There was something about Sheriff Wiley's pompadour," suggested our
little lady proofreader.

"Yes," returned the editor. "Mart had a queer head of hair. It was
dark and stiff, and he brushed it straight back in a pompadour. When
he was angry or excited, it actually rose on his scalp like wire.
Hap's counsel made a great fuss over Mart's pompadour and the part
it sort of played in egging Hap on. The sight of it, stiffening and
rising the way it did maddened Ruggam so that he beat it down
hysterically in retaliation for the many grudges he fancied
he owed the officer. No, it was all right to make the sentence
life-imprisonment, only it should have been an asylum. Hap's not
right. You'd know it without being told. I guess it's his e