chair by its being the only one in the room. The rest of the population
of the court room of Hicks Center were seated upon benches made of split
and hewn logs.

"Thank you, Mr. Hilldrop," said the Reverend Mr. Goodloe, as he sat down
beside the prisoner and began a whispered conversation with him.

"The court have come to order. Shoot ahead, Jim, and tell us what Jed
have done and how he done it," commanded the judge, as he tilted back
his chair, took out his knife and began to whittle a stick of bright red
cedar. Twelve good men and true, attired in butternut trousers stuffed
into muddy boots, settled themselves in the jury box, which was a log
bench set at right angles to the other benches, a little apart from the
table and chair of the judge, and nine of them took out their knives and
bits of cedar and began to follow the lead of the judge in making fine
pink curls fall upon the floor.

"May it please your honor, the prisoner is charged with the stealing of
a young mule," said a lanky young mountain lawyer, who had put on a coat
over his flannel shirt and brushed a little patch of tow hair just above
his brows in deference to his position of prosecuting attorney.

"State yo' case," commanded the judge, as he tried the point of his
splinter against his thumb to test its whittled sharpness.

"Hiram Turner, over at Sycamore, lent Jed a team of mules to haul his
daughter, who married Jed, home in a wagon with her beds and truck, and
when he come down Paradise Ridge to git the team, Jed claimed one had
got away from him and run off in the big woods. They was a horse and
mule trader come along the same day Jed lost the mule and when Hi and