But he was determined that so far as in him lay he would at least send his man back to the penitentiary for the remainder of his life.

Young Harry Harvey, “The Boy Orator of Zepata City,” as he was called, was very dear to the people of that booming town.  In their eyes he was one of the most promising young men in the whole great unwieldy State of Texas, and the boy orator thought they were probably right, but he was far too clever to let them see it.  He was clever in his words and in his deeds and in his appearance.  And he dressed much more carefully than any other man in town, with a frock-coat and a white tie winter and summer, and a fine high hat.  That he was slight and short of stature was something he could not help, and was his greatest, keenest regret, and that Napoleon was also short and slight did not serve to satisfy him or to make his regret less continual.  What availed the sharply cut, smoothly shaven face and the eyes that flashed when he was moved, or the bell-like voice, if every unlettered ranchman or ranger could place both hands on his shoulders and look down at him from heights above?  But they forgot this and he forgot it before he had reached the peroration of his closing speech.  They saw only the Harry Harvey they knew and adored moving and rousing them with his voice, trembling with indignation when he wished to tremble, playing all his best tricks in his best manner, and cutting the air with sharp, cruel words when he was pleased to be righteously just.

The young District Attorney turned slowly on his heels, and swept the court-room carelessly with a glance of the clever black eyes.  The moment was his.  He saw all the men he knew—­the men who made his little world—­crowding silently forward, forgetful of the heat, of the suffocating crush of those about them, of the wind that rattled the doors in the corridors, and conscious only of him.  He saw his old preceptor watching keenly from the bench, with a steady glance of perfect appreciation, such as that with which one actor in the box compliments the other on the stage.  He saw the rival attorney—­the great lawyer from the great city—­nervously smiling, with a look of confidence that told the lack of it; and he saw the face of the prisoner grim and set and hopelessly defiant.  The boy orator allowed his uplifted arm to fall until the fingers pointed at the prisoner.

“This man,” he said, and as he spoke even the wind in the corridors hushed for the moment, “is no part or parcel of Zepata City of to-day.  He comes to us a relic of the past—­a past that has brought honor to many, wealth to some, and which is dear to all of us who love the completed purpose of their work; a past that was full of hardships and glorious efforts in the face of daily disappointments, embitterments, and rebuffs.  But the part this man played in that past lives only in the rude court records of that day, in the traditions of the gambling-hell and the saloons, and on the headstones of his victims.