“Well, sir, what’s going to happen to me?” demanded the judge angrily.

“I reckon you’ll be tried.  I reckon the law will deal with you —­that is, if the public remains ca’m.  Maybe it will come to the conclusion that it’d prefer a lynching—­people are funny.”  He seemed to detach himself from the possible current of events.

“And, waking and sleeping, I have that before me!” cried the judge bitterly.

“You had ought to have thought of that sooner, when you was unloading that money.  Why, it ain’t even good counterfeit!  I wonder a man of your years wa’n’t slicker.”

“Have you taken steps to find the boy, or Solomon Mahaffy?” inquired the judge.

“For what?”

“How is my innocence going to be established—­how am I going to clear myself if my witnesses are hounded out of the county?”

“I love to hear you talk, sir.  I told ’em at the raising to-day that I considered you one of the most eloquent minds I had ever listened to—­but naturally, sir, you are too smart to be honest.  You say you ain’t been convicted yet; but you’re going to be!  There’s quite a scramble for places on the jury already.  There was pistols drawed up at the tavern by some of our best people, sir, who got het up disputin’ who was eligible to serve.”  The judge groaned.  “You should be thankful them pistols wasn’t drawed on you, sir,” said the sheriff amiably.  “You’ve got a heap to be grateful about; for we’ve had one lynching, and we’ve rid one or two parties on a rail after giving ’em a coat of tar and feathers.”

The judge shuddered.  The sheriff continued placidly: 

“I’ll take it you’ll get all that’s coming to you, sirsay about twenty years—­that had ought to let you out easy.  Sort of round out your earthly career, and leave something due you t’other side of Jordan.”

“I suppose there is no use in my pointing out to you that I did not know the money was counterfeit, and that I was quite innocent of any intention to defraud Mrs. Walker?” said the judge, with a weary, exasperated air.

“It don’t make no difference where you got the money; you know that, for you set up to be some sort of a lawyer.”

Presently the sheriff went his way into the dusk of the evening, and night came swiftly to fellowship the judge’s fears.  A single moonbeam found its way into the place, making a thin rift in the darkness.  The judge sat down on the three-legged stool, which, with a shake-down bed, furnished the jail.  His loneliness was a great wave of misery that engulfed him.

“Well, just so my life ain’t cut short!” he whispered.

He had known a varied career, and what he was pleased to call his unparalleled misfortunes had reduced him to all kinds of desperate shifts to live, but never before had the law laid its hands on him.  True, there had been times and seasons when he had been grateful for the gloom of the dark ways he trod, for echoes had taken the place of the living voice that had once spoken to his soul; but he could still rest his hand upon his heart and say that the law had always nodded to him to pass on.