testified that he had heard angry words in the night.

Tommy Taft was brought to trial. It was proved that the murdered man's
money-bag was rifled of all coin, but of only one bank note,--and that,
the one which the tavern-keeper had had in his possession the afternoon
before the tragedy and which Tommy Taft got changed on the day after the
murder. These facts, together with the footprints on the gravel soil,
enabled the prosecuting attorney to make out what seemed to both judge
and jury a very strong case. Indeed, there was but one person in the
court room that believed the prisoner innocent,--that was Tommy Taft
himself.

He admitted that he had had a dispute with his employer, but gave no
cause and that the latter had peremptorily dismissed him from further
service; that the bank-note was given to him that very same night, as
the full amount due him; that after the dispute, he could not go to bed;
that he bethought him, without disturbing anybody, to steal quietly down
stairs and to depart, unobserved, by way of the front door. He sturdily
denied that the footprints on the gravel soil were his. He firmly
declared his innocence, and that, while he felt that he could tell the
name of the murderer, he did not wish to do so, for the reason that he
had no proof to support his suspicion.

Tommy Taft died on the gallows. After the execution, people gathered to
discuss the event. They began to think, too, as people sometimes will
when they have condemned without thinking.

"That boy's pluckier than I'd a bin," murmured an old man, as he dragged
his weather-beaten body slowly through the crowd. "He wasn't a guilty,
Tommy Taft wasn't."