The commissioner studied Lem again.
"I knew your father, Lutts," he said. "In fact, I have a small piece of lead inside me yet that your father put there." He paused again and, oddly enough, the severe frown with which he had raked the prisoner at first now vanished. He continued evenly:
"Do you see those portraits along the wall? They are men who worked themselves up in the service during the thirty-five years that I can remember. They all looked for your father; they all found him. But none of them ever brought him in."
The commissioner shifted his eyes to Burton.
"So it was left to you, eh? Well—well, of course, I rather expected—that is, I hoped to get old Lutts alive, but——"
He broke off abruptly and added his signature to the blue printed blank he had filled in, then handed the slip to Burton with:
"I'll continue the hearing for further evidence—take him over to the jail, Burton."
He now looked at Lem.
"Have you anything to say for yourself?"
Throughout all this the boy had stood straight and unflinching. His features were pale but his jaws were hard set. Friendless and moneyless, he knew his chances were small. He knew that he stood on the perilous brink of some dire happening. He understood the import of the commissioner's order to hold him for additional evidence, and while he was not wholly unafraid, he stood tense and determined, boding no retreat, like a brave horse taking a deep, wide ditch in the dark, with yawning depths beneath him, and the gush of waters in his ears.