Amos’s eyes went from his mother’s picture to the woman with the pale face and the lustrous eyes beneath it. He felt as stirred by love and reverence and the longing to worship as ever mediæval knight; he wanted to kneel and kiss the hem of her gown; what he did do was to open his mouth, gasp once or twice, and finally say, “Ruth, you—you are as good as they make ’em!”

Amos went, and the instant that he was gone, Ruth, attending to her own scheme of salvation, crossed the river. She entered the office of the steel-works, where the officers gave her full information about the character of Sol Joscelyn. He was a good fellow and a good workman, always ready to work an extra turn to help a fellow-workman. She went to his landlady, who was Elly’s mother, and heard of his sober and blameless life. “And indeed, miss, I know of a certainty he never did git drunk but once before, and that was after his mother’s funeral; and she was bedfast for ten years, and he kep’ her like a lady, with a hired girl, he did; and he come home to the dark house, and he couldn’t bear it, and went back to the boys, and they, meaning well, but foolish, like boys, told him to forget the grief.” Ruth went back to Sol’s mill, between heats, to seek Sol’s young friend. She found the “real nice little boy” with a huge quid in his cheek, and his fists going before the face of another small lad who had “told the roller lies.” He cocked a shrewd and unchildish blue eye at Ruth, and skilfully sent his quid after the flying tale-bearer. “Sol Joscelyn? Course I know him. He’s a friend of mine. Give me coffee outer his pail first day I got here; lets me take his tongs. I’m goin’ to be a rougher too, you bet; I’m a-learnin’. He’s the daisiest rougher, he is. It’s grand to see him ketch them white-hot bars that’s jest a-drippin’, and chuck ’em under like they was kindling-wood. He’s licked my old man, too, for haulin’ me round by the ear. He ain’t my own father, so I didn’t interfere. Say, you goin’ to see Sol to-night? You can give him things, can’t you? I got a mince-pie for him.”

Ruth consented to take the pie, and she did not know whether to laugh or cry when, examining the crust, she discovered, cunningly stowed away among the raisins and citron, a tiny file.

When she told Sol, he did not seem surprised. “He’s always a-sending of them,” said he; “most times Mr. Raker finds ’em, but once he got one inside a cigar, and I bit my teeth on it. He thinks if he can jest git a file to me it’s all right. I s’pose he reads sech things in books.”

Amos went to Des Moines of a Monday afternoon; Tuesday night he walked through the jail gate with his head down, as no one had ever seen the sheriff walk before. He kept his eye on the sodden, frozen grass and the ice-varnished bricks of the walk, which glittered under the electric lights; it was cruelty enough to have to hear that dizzy ring of hammers; he would not see; but all at once he recoiled and stepped over the sharp black shadow of a beam. But he had his composure ready for Raker.

“Well!—he wouldn’t listen to you?”

“No; he listened, but I couldn’t move him, nor Dennison couldn’t, either. He’s honest about it; he thinks Sol is guilty, and an example is needed. Finally I told him I would resign rather than hang an innocent man. He said Woods had another man ready.”

“That will be a blow to Sol. I told him you would attend to everything. He said he’d risk another man if it would make you feel bad—”

“I won’t risk another man, then. But the Governor called my bluff. Where’s Miss Graves?”

“Gone to Des Moines with Elly. Went next train after your telegram.”