"In the name of all that's wonderful, sheriff," said the bewildered governor, "who signed all those petitions? If the papers wanted the man hanged, why, in the fiend's name, did they not say so before, and save me all this worry? Now how many know of this suppressed dispatch?"
"Well, there's you and your subordinates here and——"
"We'll say nothing about it."
"And then there is me and Bowen in Brentingville. That's all."
"Well, Bowen will keep quiet for his own sake, and you won't mention it."
"Certainly not."
"Then let's all keep quiet. The thing's safe if some of those newspaper fellows don't get after it. It's not on record in the books, and I'll burn all the documents."
And thus it was. Public opinion was once more vindicated. The governor was triumphantly re-elected as a man with some stamina about him.
THE VENGEANCE OF THE DEAD.
It is a bad thing for a man to die with an unsatisfied thirst for revenge parching his soul. David Allen died, cursing Bernard Heaton and lawyer Grey; hating the lawyer who had won the case even more than the man who was to gain by the winning. Yet if cursing were to be done, David should rather have cursed his own stubbornness and stupidity.