“My! we couldn’t get him out, Tom. And besides, ’twouldn’t do any good; they’d ketch him again.”

“Yes — so they would. But I hate to hear ’em abuse him so like the dickens when he never done — that.”

“I do too, Tom. Lord, I hear ’em say he’s the bloodiest looking villain in this country, and they wonder he wasn’t ever hung before.”

“Yes, they talk like that, all the time. I’ve heard ’em say that if he was to get free they’d lynch him.”

“And they’d do it, too.”

The boys had a long talk, but it brought them little comfort. As the twilight drew