shut Judge Pepperleigh, the district judge in Missinaba County,
outside of it? The more so inasmuch as the closing up of the bar
under the rigid license law of the province was a matter that the
proprietor never trusted to any hands but his own. Punctually every
night at 11 o'clock Mr. Smith strolled from the desk of the
"rotunda" to the door of the bar. If it seemed properly full of
people and all was bright and cheerful, then he closed it. If not, he
kept it open a few minutes longer till he had enough people inside to
warrant closing. But never, never unless he was assured that
Pepperleigh, the judge of the court, and Macartney, the prosecuting
attorney, were both safely in the bar, or the bar parlour, did the
proprietor venture to close up. Yet on this fatal night Pepperleigh
and Macartney had been shut out--actually left on the street without
a drink, and compelled to hammer and beat at the street door of the
bar to gain admittance.

This was the kind of thing not to be tolerated. Either a hotel must
be run decently or quit. An information was laid next day and Mr.
Smith convicted in four minutes,--his lawyers practically refusing to
plead. The Mariposa court, when the presiding judge was cold sober,
and it had the force of public opinion behind it, was a terrible
engine of retributive justice.

So no wonder that Mr. Smith awaited with anxiety the message of his
legal adviser.

He looked alternately up the street and down it again, hauled out his
watch from the depths of his embroidered pocket, and examined the
hour hand and the minute hand and the second hand with frowning
scrutiny.