"First case Tom's
lost this week. Goes pretty hard with him, you know, when he loses
a case."
"It would have been an outrage, sir, if he had won it," broke in a
stranger. "The arrest of an old man like that on such a charge, and his
confinement for nearly a year in a hole like that one across the street,
is a disgrace. Something is rotten in the way the laws are administered
in the mountains of Kentucky, or outrages like this couldn't occur."
"He wouldn't thank you, sir, for interfering," remarked a bystander.
"Being shut up isn't to him what it is to you and me. He's been taken
care of for a year, hasn't he? Warmed and fed, and got his three meals a
day. That's a blamed sight more than he gets at home. They're only
half-human, these mountaineers, anyway. Don't worry; he's all right."
"You've struck it first time," retorted the Deputy Marshal who had
smelled the whiskey, found the dime, and slipped the handcuffs on the
old man's withered wrists. "Go slow, will you?" and he faced the
stranger.
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