pretty well cut to pieces."

"Who was he?" asked the judge.

"Nobody knew, and he wasn't conscious. I shouldn't be surprised
if he never opens his lips again. When the doctor had looked to
his cuts, the fellow on the raft cast off and went on down the
Elk."

It occurred to the judge that he himself had news to impart. He
must account for the boy's presence.

"While you've been taking your whiff of life down at the
steamboat landing, Mahaffy, I've been experiencing a most
extraordinary coincidence." The judge paused. By a sullen glare
in his deep-sunk eyes Mr. Mahaffy seemed to bid him go on. "Back
east--" the judge jerked his thumb with an indefinite gesture
"back east at my ancestral home--" Mahaffy snorted harshly. "You
don't believe I had an ancestral home?--well, I had! It was of
brick, sir, with eight Corinthian columns across the front,
having a spacious paneled hall sixty feet long. I had the
distinguished honor to entertain General Andrew Jackson there."

"Did you get those dimensions out of the jug?" inquiry Mahaffy,
with a frightful bark that was intended for a sarcastic laugh.

"Sir, it is not in your province to judge me by my present
degraded associates. Near the house I have described--my
father's and his father's before him, and mine now--but for the
unparalleled misfortunes which have pursued me--lived a family by