Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II HE found the little frame building for which he was looking. It was painted white, and contained the front and back rooms of his friend's law office. Looking in at the open doorway, he saw Elwood writing at an old-fashioned rosewood desk at a window, the sill of which was only a foot or so from the sidewalk. The lawyer, about thirty years of age, was above medium height, well-built, and had light hair and mustache, and was in his shirt-sleeves, and had a cigar in the corner of his mouth. Smiling expectantly, Hartley rested his bag on the threshold and gently rapped. The man at the desk scowled, rolled his cigar between his lips, and without looking up growled: "Come in!" "I'll be hanged if I do," was the answer. "I wouldn't go in a joint like this without special police protection." "Great Caesar!" Elwood had glanced around and was now on his feet, a delighted look on his face, his hand extended. "By George, old chap, I thought it was a negro I sent to the Court House with a deed to record. Well, well, here you are at last, andlooking like Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday. Come in, come in and sit down—haven't got a blasted thing to do—just finished the only job on hand. So you've struck old Tennessee at last?" "Yes; the Lord knows I've been wanting to come long enough." The new-comer smiled as he took the vacant chair by the desk and glanced about the room. He saw a row of bookcases against the white-plastered wall, a torn map of the State thirty or forty years of age, a later one of the county, flanked on either side by engravings of Lee and Jackson, Henry Clay and Brownlow, an open fireplace half filled with the ashes of the past winter, a pair of ring-topped dog-irons submerged by the sweepings of the floor for the entire spring and summer. "When y... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.