don't want my protection?" asked Doggly.
Both Alvin and Miss Larner agreed that they did not.
When Po made his good-byes and was ready to leave, Miss Larner slipped her arm through his. "Take me downstairs, please, and on to the room I'm sharing with my new friend Ramona." She gave not so much as a backward glance at Alvin.
Measure hooted once after the door was closed. "Alvin, is she testing you? Just to make sure that you'll never turn wifebeater, no matter what the provocation?"
"I got a feeling I ain't seen provocation yet." But Alvin was smiling when he said it, and the others got the idea he didn't mind the idea of sparring with Miss Larner now and then - sparring with words, that is, words and looks and winks and nasty grins.
After the candles were doused and the room was dark and still, with all of them in bed and wishing to sleep, Alvin murmured: "I wonder what they meant to do to me."
Nobody asked who he meant; Measure didn't have to. "They meant to kill you, Alvin. Does it matter what method they used? Hanging. Burning alive. A dozen musket balls. Do you really care which way you die?"
"I'd like to have a corpse decent-looking enough that the coffin can be open and my children can bear to look at me and say good-bye to me."
"You're dreaming then," said Measure. "Cause even right now I don't know how no wife and children could bear to look at you, though I daresay they'll say good-bye readily enough."
"I expect they were going to hang me," said Alvin. "If you ever see folks about to hang me, don't waste your time or risk your life trying to save me. Just come along after they've given up on me so you can get me on home."
"So you got no fear of the rope," said Measure.
"Nor fear of drowning or suffocation," said Alvin. "Nor falling. I can fix up breaks and make the rocks soft under me. But fire, now. Fire and beheading and too many bullets, those can take me right off. I could use some help if you see them going at me like that."
"I'll try to remember that," said Measure.
* * *
Monday morning behind the smithy, everyone was gathered by ten o'clock; but from dawn onward, heavily armed deputies were on guard all around the site. The judge arranged things so the whole jury could see, as well as Marty Laws, Verily Cooper, Alvin Smith, Makepeace Smith, and Hank Dowser. "This court is now in session," said the judge loudly. "Now, Hank Dowser, you show us the exact place you marked."
Verily Cooper spoke up. "How do we know he'll mark the same place?"
"Cause I'll dowse it again," said Hank Dowser, "and the same spot will still be best."
Alvin spoke up then. "There's water everywhere here. There's not a place you can pick where there won't be water if you just go far enough down."
Hank Dowser whirled on him and glared. "There it is! He's got no respect for any man's knack except his own! You think I don't know there's water most everywhere? The question is, is the water pure? Is it close to the surface? That's what I find - the easy dig, the clean water. And I'll tell you, by the use of hickory and willow wands, that the water is purest here, and closest to the surface here, and so I mark this spot, as I would have more'n a year ago! Tell me, Alvin Journeyman, if you're so clever, is this or is it not the same spot I marked, exactly?"
"It is," said Alvin, sounding a little abashed. "And I didn't mean to imply that you weren't a real dowser, sir."
"You didn't exactly mean not to imply it either, though, did you!"
"I'm sorry," said Alvin. "The water is purest here, and closest to the surface, and you truly found it twice the same, the exact spot."
The judge intervened. "So after this unconventional courtroom exchange, which seems appropriate to this unconventional courtroom, you both agree that this is the spot where Alvin says he dug the first well and found nothing but solid impenetrable stone, and where it is Makepeace's contention that there was no such stone, but rather a buried treasure which Alvin stole and converted to his own use while telling a tale of turning iron into gold."
"For all we know he hid my iron underground here!" cried Makepeace.
The judge sighed. "Makepeace, please,