"I don't understand," he said, "I didn't know anybody knew I wanted a place."
"All the same, you have got the endorsements," insisted Hogg.
He turned to his desk, and got out a bundle of letters.
"Look over these," he said. "You probably know some of the writers."
McDonald took the letters, and read them one after another. They were from well-known criminals, their lawyers, their friends and their associates. They had been received by Hogg while he was attorney-general, and each was a protest and a complaint against McDonald, declaring him to be a ruthless and tyrannical official, whose chief recreation was hounding good citizens for the sake of revenge or glory, enforcing laws that were not on the statute books, adding that it was not unusual for him to put the said citizen in jail, or in box-cars, declaring further that he sometimes hitched them to posts with chains, and that he was a menace to legitimate settlement and society in general.
McDonald looked over some of these documents, and grinned.
"That's so, Jim," he said, "I do put 'em in box-cars when there ain't a jail; the way I used to do back in Mineola—you recollect, when the jail was full—and I lariat 'em out with a chain and a post when there ain't a box-car handy; but I don't reckon they're innocent."
Hogg nodded.