told me nothing, but perhaps she hasn't got up yet."
"She ain't in her room."
"What do you mean?"
"You didn't hear buggy-wheels last night--along towards two o'clock?"
"No, but--you don't mean to say? Lawyer Barkman!" And Bancroft started
up with horror in his look.
The Elder stared at him, with rigid face and wild eyes, but as he
gradually took in the sincerity of the young man's excitement, he
turned, and left the room.
To his bedroom he went, and there, after closing the door, fell on his
knees. For a long time no word came; with clasped hands and bowed head
the old man knelt in silence. Sobs shook his frame, but no tears fell.
At length broken sentences dropped heavily from his half-conscious lips:
"Lord, Lord! 'Tain't right to punish her. She knowed nothin'. She's so
young. I did wrong, but I kain't bear her to be punished.
"P'r'aps You've laid this on me jes' to show I'm foolish and weak.
That's so, O Lord! I'm in the hollow of Your hand. But You'll save her,
O Lord! for Jesus' sake.
"I'm all broke up. I kain't pray. I'm skeered. Lord Christ, help her;
stan' by her; be with her. O Lord, forgive!"
JUNE AND JULY, 1891.
* * * * *
THE SHERIFF AND HIS PARTNER.
One afternoon in July, 1869, I was seated at my desk in Locock's law-
office in the town of Kiota, Kansas. I had landed in New York from
Liverpool nearly a year before, and had drifted westwards seeking in
vain for some steady employment. Lawyer Locock, however, had promised to
let me study law with him, and to give me a few dollars a month besides,
for my services as a clerk. I was fairly satisfied with the prospect,
and the little town interested me. An outpost of civilization, it was
situated on the border of the great plains, which were still looked upon
as the natural possession of the nomadic Indian tribes. It owed its
importance to the fact that it lay on the cattle-trail which led from
the prairies of Texas through this no man's land to the railway system,
and that it was the first place where the cowboys coming north could
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