In the emptying room he felt the cool hand of his counsel touch his own, and followed him—with a watchful deputy-sheriff now in hand-reach—to a side door that opened into a chamber at the rear of the court-room. On the threshold the lawyer turned to the sheriff.
"There's no hurry, Jerry," he said peevishly. "You wait out here a few minutes. The old man himself is coming. He wants to see him."
"Mr. Mason," said Sevier as the other closed the door. "I shall not pretend to thank you for your interest and kindness."
The man of briefs shrugged his shoulders. "There's nothing to thank me for," he answered briskly. "Now, if I had cleared you—"
Harry nodded. "Naturally, you couldn't do that. You were at a disadvantage."
"Thanks to you!"
"Yes, I didn't assist you much, I know."
"Didn't help me at all," came back in a growl.
"No doubt you think I might have," said Harry. "But please don't count me unresponsive. It is only that the logic of the situation appealed to me as unanswerable. But it is a privilege," he added, with the glimmer of a smile, "to have been associated with you."
Mason looked at him with a twist to his saturnine lips. "You have been my most remarkable client," he said. "It would have pleased me to have gotten you off. But unluckily for you, I'm no Harry Sevier."