A Waif of the Mountains. Ellis Edward Sylvester

put on trial in this honorable Court. Gents,” added Ruggles, glancing from the prisoner into the expectant faces, “since the man owns up, it rests with you to fix the penalty for his crime of bigamous murder.”

      The prisoner resumed his seat and the chairman looked around, as an invitation for those present to express their views. When they came to do so, a wide diversity came to the surface. Vose Adams suggested that the criminal be compelled to go without any food for three days, but this was not favorably received, since the rough, trying life which each man had been compelled to follow at times during the past years, made the punishment much less than it appeared to be.

      Ike Hoe suggested that instead of food, the accused’s liquid refreshment should be shut off for the time named. The accused groaned.

      When this had continued for some time, Felix Brush, the parson, took the floor.

      “Gentlemen, it’s a principle in law to be lenient with the first offence, and, since this is the first time that Bidwell has offended and he deeply feels his disgrace, why not require him to apologize to the young lady and stand treat for the crowd, with the understanding that his next crime shall be visited with condign punishment?”

      “Do you propose to let him off?” demanded the wrathful chairman.

      “Yes; for this once, but never again.”

      “I’ll never consent to anything of the kind! The dignity of the Court must be preserved; the law must be executed, and any man who says ‘devil’ or ‘thunder’ in the presence of the little gal, I don’t care what the circumstances, orter to be shot, so that there wont be any delay in his going to the devil, where he belongs.”

      “O, Mr. Ruggles, I heard you!”

      A little figure dressed in white stood at the door leading to the rear room, and the startled auditors turning their heads, saw Nellie Dawson, with her chubby finger pointed reprovingly at the dumbfounded chairman.

      CHAPTER IV

      SUITING THE PUNISHMENT TO THE CRIME

      Wade Ruggles was speechless. He sat with his mouth wide open and his eyes staring at the little figure, as if it were a veritable apparition. All the others looked in the same direction. Nellie Dawson stood for a moment with her finger pointed reprovingly at the chairman, and then turning about ran back into the rear room and plunged into her bed.

      “Max, quick!” said Ruggles faintly, pointing to the black bottle at the rear of the bar. The landlord hastily poured out some of the fiery stuff, and the miserable fellow swallowed it at a gulp. It served partly to revive him, but he was really on the verge of collapse.

      The only one of the company not impressed was Maurice Dawson, father of the little girl. He was sitting well back of the rest, where no one paid attention to him. Comprehending the meaning of this incident, he drew his hand across his mouth to conceal the smile that could not be wholly restrained. Then he hurried back into the room to see that his child was “tucked up” and properly covered for the night. Finding himself in the dark, where he could not be observed, he laughed deeply and silently, his mirth all the greater because of the oppressive gravity of every one else. Then bending over, he said, as he kissed the little one:

      “I thought you were asleep, Nellie?”

      “So I was, but Mr. Ruggles spoke those bad words so loud he woked me.”

      “You mustn’t get up again, will you?”

      “Not if you don’t want me to.”

      “I have just told you I don’t wish you to.”

      “Then I wont get up.”

      The father lingered in the room, until he mastered his disposition to laugh, and then, when he walked out among his friends no countenance was graver than his.

      “I say, Dawson,” said Ruggles, swallowing a lump in his throat, “will you oblige me by acting as chairman?–I don’t feel–very–well.”

      The gentleman walked forward to where Ruggles had been standing with his back against the bar, looking down in the faces of his friends. The poor fellow seemed to have aged ten years, as he slouched off to an upturned box near the door, where he dejectedly seated himself.

      “What is your pleasure, gentlemen?” asked Dawson, as if presiding over the deliberations of one of the most august assemblages in the land; “I am ready to hear any suggestion or motion.”

      Al Bidwell rose to his feet.

      “Mr. Chairman, I wish to endorse with all my heart, the soul-stirring, eloquent address to which we have just listened from the late Mr. Ruggles,–I mean the late Chairman. Them sentiments of his is as sound as a gold dollar. He maintains that any gent that uses an unproper word, such as he used and which I scorn to repeat, in the presence of the young lady, who has just listened to his remarks, oughter to be sent to the individooal whose name is too shocking fur me to pronounce, since the aforesaid young lady is in the adjoining apartment, from whence she was awoke by the awful profanity of the gent who lately served as our chairman.”

      And having gotten back on Ruggles in this masterly manner, Bidwell sat down, slung one leg over the other, and relit his pipe. The oppressive silence was broken by a prodigious sigh from Ruggles.

      Parson Brush, after the stillness had continued some minutes, rose to his feet.

      “Mr. Chairman, an extraordinary state of affairs has arisen. You have not forgotten that I plead for charity for Mr. Bidwell, because it was his first offence. My plea was not well received, but my sentiments are unchanged, and I now make the same plea for Mr. Ruggles and on the same grounds. When he was denouncing in fitting terms the sin of Bidwell, he had no thought of committing the crime himself, but in his earnestness he did. This being plain to all of us, I renew–”

      Wade Ruggles bounded to his feet.

      “I don’t want any one to plead for me! I ain’t pleading fur myself! I can take my medicine like a man; if there’s any galoot here–”

      He suddenly checked himself with an apprehensive glance at the door of the rear room, and then resumed in a more subdued voice:

      “I insist that Al Bidwell shall suffer for his onspeakable crime and me too, ’cause mine was onspeakabler. Jedgin’ from the evidence that showed itself, I must have awoke the little gal from peaceful slumber, by them awful words of mine.”

      He paused and looked inquiringly at the chairman, who calmly returned his gaze, without speaking. It was Parson Brush who interposed:

      “I should like to ask, Mr. Dawson, whether the supposition of Mr. Ruggles has any foundation in fact.”

      “It has; when I asked Nellie what caused her to awake, she said it was Mr. Ruggles when he used those bad words.”

      “Just what I thought!” exclaimed Ruggles, as if he enjoyed heaping fire upon his own head; “there ain’t any depth of infamy which I hain’t reached. For me to try to sneak out now, when I made such a–(Here he again threw a startled glance at the rear of the room) would be to do something which Wade Ruggles never done in his variegated career of nigh onto forty years. All I ask is that you’ll git through it as soon as you kin and fix our terms of imprisonment or our deaths and hev done with it.”

      Al Bidwell took an unworthy delight in prodding the man who had been so severe upon him.

      “I beg humbly to suggest to the gent that there are plenty of places in the mountains where he can make a jump of a thousand feet or two into the kenyons. Wouldn’t it be a good idee fur the gent to try it?”

      “I will if you’ll join me,” retorted Wade, turning upon him like a flash.

      “I’ll let you try it first and see how it works,” replied Bidwell, so crushed that he remained silent henceforward.

      “Since I am chairman,” said Dawson, with becoming dignity, “it is my duty to listen to suggestions and to hear motions. What is your pleasure, gentlemen?”

      No one in looking at the countenance of Maurice Dawson would have suspected he was extracting