Solemn as the occasion was, a grin went round at the bald reference to a plainer fact. Even the dullest there had seen the grayish-red at the roots of the coroner's beard. The coroner grew very red of face, and gave some orders to his stenographer, who wrote them down. He thanked the jurors and dismissed them. Bill Frost began to prepare for the journey to Shelbyville to turn Joe over to the sheriff.
The first, and most important, thing in the list of preliminaries for the journey, was the proper adjustment of Bill's mustache. Bill roached it up with a turn of the forefinger, using the back of it, which was rough, like a corn-cob. When he had got the ends elevated at a valiant angle, his hat firmly settled upon his head, and his suspenders tightened two inches, he touched Joe's shoulder.
"Come on!" he ordered as gruffly and formally as he could draw his edged voice.
Joe stood, and Bill put his hand on his arm to pilot him, in all officiousness, out of the room. Mrs. Newbolt stepped in front of them as they approached.
"That's all right, Mother," he comforted her, "everything will be cleared up and settled in a day or two. You go on home now, Mother, and look after things till I come."
"Step out of the way, step out of the way!" said Bill with spreading impatience.
Mrs. Newbolt looked at the blustering official pityingly.
"Bill Frost, you ain't got as much sense as you was born with!" said she. She patted Joe's shoulder, which was as near an approach to tenderness as he ever remembered her to make.
Constable Frost fell into consultation with his adjutant, Sol Greening, as soon as he cleared the room with the prisoner. They discussed gravely in the prisoner's hearing, for Bill kept his hand on Joe's arm all the time, the advisability of tying him securely with a rope before starting on the journey to jail.
Joe grew indignant over this base proposal. He declared that if Bill was afraid of him he would go alone to the county-seat and give himself up to the sheriff if they would set him free. Bill was a little assured by his prisoner's evident sincerity.
Another consultation brought them to the agreement that the best they could do, in the absence of handcuffs, was to hitch up to Isom's buggy and make the prisoner drive. With hands employed on the lines, he could be watched narrowly by Bill who was to take Sol's old navy six along in his mighty hand.