“Air ye ’lowin’ ye’d put off the trial furder ’n the day be set fur, Mr. Harshaw?” he asked, with the accents of dismay. “Fur Gawd’s sake, don’t let ’em do that. I wouldn’t bide hyar, all shet up”—his eyes turned from wall to wall with the baffled eagerness of a caged beast—“I wouldn’t bide hyar a day longer ’n I’m ’bleeged ter, not ter git shet o’ damnation. Lord A’mighty, don’t go a-shovin’ the day off; hurry it up, ef ye kin. I want ter kem ter trial an’ git back ter the mountings. I feel ez ef I be bound ter go.”
The lawyer still looked at him with his keen sidelong glances.
“The jury stands ’twixt you and the mountains, Mink. Mightn’t get out, after all’s said and done.”
Mink looked at him with a sudden alarm in his dilated eyes, as if the contingency had been all undreamed of.
“They’ll be bound ter let me out,” he declared. “I ain’t feared o’ the jury.”
“If you don’t know what you did yourself, you can’t expect them to be much smarter in finding it out,” reasoned the lawyer.
“I ain’t done nuthin’ ter keep me jailed this hyar way,” said Mink, hardily. “I feel it in my bones I’ll git out. I never try them bars,” nodding at the window, “but what I looks fur ’em ter break in my hand.”
“See here,” said the lawyer, sternly, “you let ‘them bars’ alone; you ain’t going ter do yourself any good breaking jail.”
He looked down meditatively at his feet, and stamped one of them that his trousers might slip further down over his boot-leg, which deported itself assertively and obtrusively, as if it were in the habit of being worn on the outside.