overcoat, along my arms to my gloves, and slowly down to my shoes.

"I s'pose you never done no time?" He had no suspicion that I had; he only meant to be amiable.

"No," I said, with equal simplicity, meeting him on his own ground—quite as if an attack of measles at some earlier age was under discussion, to which he had fallen a victim while I had escaped. As he spoke his fingers tightened over the child's hand. Then he turned and straightened her hood, tucking the loose strands of hair under its edge with his fingers.

"You seem rather fond of that little girl; is she any relation?" I asked, forgetting that I had asked almost that same question before.

"No, she isn't any relation—just Ben Mulford's girl." He raised his other hand and pressed the child's head down upon the deerskin waistcoat, close into the fur, with infinite tenderness. The child reached up her small, chapped hand and laid it on his cheek, cuddling closer, a shy, satisfied smile overspreading her face.

My topics were exhausted, and we rode on in silence, he sitting in front of me, his eyes now so completely hidden in the shadow of his broad-brimmed hat that I only knew they were fixed on me when some sudden tilt of the stage threw the light full on his face. I tried offering him a cigar, but he would not smoke—"had gotten out of the habit of it," he said, "being shut up so long. It didn't taste good to him, so he had given it up."

When the stage reached the crossing near the college gate and stopped, he asked quietly:—

"You get out here?" and lifted the child as he spoke so that her soiled shoes would not scrape my coat. In the action I saw that his leg pained him, for he bent it suddenly and put his hand on the kneecap.

"I hope your mother will be better," I said. "Good-night; good-night, little girl."

"Thank you; good-night," he answered quickly, with a strain of sadness that I had not caught before. The child raised her eyes to mine, but did not speak.

I mounted the hill to the big college building, and stopped under a light to look back; following with my eyes the stage on its way to the station. The child was on her knees, looking at me out of the window and waving her hand, but the man sat by the lamp, his head on his chest.

All through my discourse the picture of that keen-eyed, handsome young fellow, with his pointed beard and picturesque deerskin waistcoat, the little child cuddled down upon his breast, kept coming before me.

When I had finished, and was putting on my coat in the president's room,—the landlord had sent his team to bring me back,—I asked one of the professors, a dry, crackling, sandy-haired professor, with bulging eyes and watch-crystal spectacles, if he knew of a man by the name of Sands who had lived in Hell's Diggings with his mother, and who had served two terms in state's prison, and I related my experience in the stage, telling him of the impression his face and bearing had made upon me, and of his tenderness to the child beside him.

"No, my dear sir, I never heard of him. Hell's Diggings is a most unsafe and unsavory locality. I would advise you to be very careful in returning. The rogue will probably be lying in wait to rob you of your fee;" and he laughed a little harsh laugh that sounded as if some one had suddenly torn a coarse rag.

"But the child with him," I said; "he seemed to love her."

"That's no argument, my dear sir. If he has been twice in state's prison he probably belongs to that class of degenerates in whom all moral sense is lacking. I have begun making some exhaustive investigations of the data obtainable on this subject, which I have embodied in a report, and which I propose sending to the State Committee on the treatment of criminals, and which"——

"Do you know any criminals personally?" I asked blandly, cutting short, as I could see, an extract from the report. His manner, too, strange to say, rather nettled me.

"Thank God, no, sir; not one! Do you?"

"I am not quite sure," I answered. "I thought I had, but I may have been mistaken."

III

hen I again mounted the sprawling steps of the disheartened-looking tavern, the landlord was sitting by the stove half asleep and alone. He had prepared a little supper, he said, as he led the way, with a benign smile, into the dining-room, where a lonely bracket lamp, backed by a tin reflector, revealed a table holding a pitcher of milk, a saucer of preserves, and some pieces of leather beef about the size used in repairing shoes.

"Come, and sit down by me," I said. "I want to talk to you about this young fellow Sands. Tell me everything you know."

"Well, you saw him; clean and pert-lookin', ain't he? Don't look much like a habitual criminal, as Polk called him, does he?"

"No, he certainly does not; but give me the whole story." I was in a mood either to reserve decision or listen to a recommendation of mercy.

"Want me to tell you about the pocketbook or that ham scrape?"

"Everything from the beginning," and I reached for the scraps of beef and poured out a glass of milk.

"Well, you saw Chris Rankin, didn't you,—that fellow that talked about jail-birds? Well, one night about six or seven years ago,"—the landlord had now drawn out a chair from the other side of the table and was sitting opposite me, leaning forward, his arms on the cloth,—"maybe six years ago, a jay of a farmer stopped at Rankin's and got himself plumb full o' tanglefoot. When he come to pay he hauled out a wallet and chucked it over to Chris and told him to take it out. The wallet struck the edge of the counter and fell on the floor, and out come a wad o' bills. The only other man besides him and Chris in the bar-room was Dick. It was Saturday night, and Dick had come in to git his paper, which was always left to Rankin's. Dick seen he was drunk, and he picked the wallet up and handed it back to the farmer. About an hour after that the farmer come a-runnin' in to Rankin's sober as a deacon, a-hollerin' that he'd been robbed, and wanted to know where Dick was. He said that he had had two rolls o' bills; one was in an envelope with three dollars in it that he'd got from the bank, and the other was the roll he paid Chris with. Dick, he claimed, was the last man who had handled the wallet, and he vowed he'd stole the envelope with the three dollars when he handed it back to him.

"When the trial come off everything went dead ag'in Dick. The cashier of the bank swore he had given the farmer the money and envelope, and in three new one-dollar bills of the bank, mind you, for the farmer had sold some ducks for his wife and wanted clean money for her. Chris swore he seen Dick pick it up and fix the money all straight again for the farmer; the farmer's wife swore she had took the money out of her husband's pocket, and that when she opened the wallet the envelope was gone, and the farmer, who was so dumb he couldn't write his name, swore that he hadn't stopped no place between Chris Rankin's and home, 'cept just a minute to fix his traces t'other side of Big Pond Woods.

"Dick's mother, of course, was nigh crazy, and she come to me and I went and got Lawyer White. It come up 'fore Judge Polk. After we had all swore to Dick's good character and, mind you, there warn't one of 'em could say a word ag'in him 'cept that he lived in Hell's Diggin's, Lawyer White began his speech, clamin' that Dick had always been square as a brick, and that the money must be found on Dick or somewheres nigh him 'fore they could prove he took it.

"Well, the jury was the kind we always git 'round here, and they done what Polk told 'em to in his charge,—just as they always do,—and Dick was found guilty before them fellers left their seats. The mother give a shriek and fell in a heap on the floor, but Dick never changed a muscle nor said