"
"Nor you like any girl from the East I ever met," he responded.
"What do you mean?" she asked, checking her horse.
"What I say," he answered, doggedly. Reasonable as this reply was, it
immediately struck him that it was scarcely dignified or manly. But
before he could explain himself Miss Porter was gone.
He met her again that very evening. The trial had been summarily
suspended by the appearance of the Sheriff of Calaveras and his
_posse_, who took Joe from that self-constituted tribunal of Blazing
Star and set his face southward and toward authoritative although more
cautious justice. But not before the evidence of the previous inquest
had been read, and the incident of the ring again delivered to the
public. It is said the prisoner burst into an incredulous laugh and
asked to see this mysterious waif. It was handed to him. Standing in
the very shadow of the gallows tree--which might have been one of the
pines that sheltered the billiard room in which the Vigilance Committee
held their conclave--the prisoner gave way to a burst of merriment, so
genuine and honest that the judge and jury joined in automatic
sympathy.
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