He had been arrested in the mountains of Kentucky and had been brought
to Covington for trial, chained to another outlaw, one of those
"moonshiners" who rob the great distilleries of part of their profits
and the richest and most humane Government on earth of part of
its revenue.
For eleven months and ten days he had been penned up in one of the steel
cages of Covington jail.
I recognized him the moment I saw him.
He was the old fellow who spoke to me from between the bars of his den
on my visit the week before to the inferno--the day I found Samanthy
North and her baby--and who told me then he was charged with "sellin'"
and that he "reckoned" he was the oldest of all the prisoners about him.
He had on the same suit of coarse, homespun clothes--the trousers hiked
up toward one shoulder from the strain of a single suspender; the
waistcoat held by one button; the shirt open at the neck, showing the
wrinkled throat, wrinkled as an old saddle-bag, and brown, hairy chest.
Pie still carried his big slouch hat, dust-begrimed and frayed at the
edges.
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