a pang like the stab of a rusty knife, for he had loved Horace Allen since boyhood. They had come west from the same little Iowa town.
But Old Two Blades would be the stern old Roman still, "See they keep the murderer safe, Scanlon," he directed, coming out of his abstraction, yet speaking in tones which showed that every word was anguish. "Respect for law must be maintained. A painful crisis like this is our opportunity. Judge Allen was very popular. The people are sure to be wild, but we mustn't let them get in a lynching mood, Scanlon."
"I'll tell Jordan to be very careful," replied the Chief Fixer.
"Yes—yes" the magnate reflected, sadly. "The provocation is great and it is all the better opportunity to show that after all respect for law is fundamental in Socatullo County. It would be a burning reproach if anything like a lynching happened among us."
"Yes," agreed Scanlon, drily. "Us law-abiding people!" But as before, the minute Scanlon was gone, the harried magnate let himself go a little. His lips quivered; a moisture got into his eyes. "Poor Horace!" he groaned, "Poor Horace!" For if the judge was ever pliant to the magnate's purpose, it was without either ever realizing that it was pliancy at all. Horace Allen was to John Boland an upright man, an incorruptible jurist and a dear friend. He had fallen a martyr. He had been stricken on the bench by one murderer as he meted out justice to another—a bright and shining victim of that spirit of lawlessness against which he always set himself so sternly and which, of late, had manifested itself rather disquietingly to the sweet,
