dazed with the shock and the fright of it all. I could hardly get my
voice when some one asked me where I had spent the evening, and at what
time I had left that saloon. He must have been murdered right after I
left. They tried to rouse him to see if he'd recognize me. He claimed
to, but I'm sure he didn't; for he couldn't see and didn't know what he
was talking about."

"What of your two companions, Joe?" I asked.

"One of them was there, in charge of the sheriff; I don't know where
the other one was. From that night up to this we have been here in
prison, though we haven't met. He's in a cell on another floor. He's
sentenced to San Quentin for life.

"Father mortgaged our pretty home [he afterwards lost it, the mortgage
being foreclosed] and has done everything under the sun he knows of to
clear me, so have my lawyers; but they've failed! Mother Roberts,
they've failed! and I'm to be sent to the penitentiary for ninety-nine
years. Think of it, ninety-nine years! That means that unless the real
murderer turns up, some day I'll die and be buried in a dishonored
grave--and _all through starting out wrong to begin with, then keeping
it up_."

My heart felt torn all to pieces for this poor unfortunate lad. How I
should have liked to sit beside those bars all night in order to
comfort him! but as that could not be, I presently, after commending
him to an ever-merciful God and Savior, whom he could not, as yet,
accept or understand, took my departure, as sad and burdened a soul as
ever walked the earth. As the tears coursed down my cheeks, I resolved
to try to help him, and, moreover, by repeating his story, to warn