Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/237

 moment at which to "flag" the judge on court days, and when the signal fell Hopedale was as dry as Death Valley so far as his honor was concerned.

The acquaintanceship of Judge Bill Thompson and Henry T. Spiser was of long standing, belonging to a period in the past of each to which neither referred.

As soon as Nan received the message Ben had sent, she ran white-faced and trembling to Riley's door. In the first shock of it she did not attempt to conceal her agitation and deep concern. The extent to which she was stirred by the news of Ben's arrest startled Bob. It convinced him more than anything else of the hopelessness of his cause—more even than her own words.

It was inconceivable to Bob that a girl like Nan could be seriously attached to Ben who, in spite of his many admirable qualities, lacked fineness. He had stubbornly refused to admit, in the face of the evidence to the contrary, that her interest in the cowboy was more than a caprice, an ephemeral fancy to which a girl of Nan's temperament might be subject, but at last he was convinced of its