justice would triumph and that it would all come out right,

just the way he had pictured it.

With the coming of the last day of the trial Billy found it

more and more difficult to adhere to his regard for law, order,

and justice. The prosecution had shown conclusively that Billy

was a hard customer. The police had brought witnesses who

did not hesitate to perjure themselves in their testimony--

testimony which it seemed to Billy the densest of jurymen

could plainly see had been framed up and learned by rote

until it was letter-perfect.

These witnesses could recall with startling accuracy every

detail that had occurred between seventeen minutes after eight

and twenty-one minutes past nine on the night of September

23 over a year before; but where they had been and what

they had done ten minutes earlier or ten minutes later, or

where they were at nine o'clock in the evening last Friday

they couldn't for the lives of them remember.

And Billy was practically without witnesses.

The result was a foregone conclusion. Even Billy had to

admit it, and when the prosecuting attorney demanded the

death penalty the prisoner had an uncanny sensation as of the

tightening of a hempen rope about his neck.

As he waited for the jury to return its verdict Billy sat in

his cell trying to read a newspaper which a kindly guard had

given him. But his eyes persisted in boring through the white

paper and the black type to scenes that were not in any

paper. He saw a turbulent river tumbling through a savage

world, and in the swirl of the water lay a little island. And he

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