"Mary! How pale you are!" cried Louise, in alarm.
"I"m haunted by that man," she continued, biting her lip to keep from crying out against the terrors of this country. "He"s always showing up in unexpected places. I shall die if I ever meet him alone."
"You need not be afraid," said Gordon, speaking quietly from his place at her side. Louise flashed him a swift, bewildering smile of grat.i.tude.
Then she remembered she had a grievance against him and she stiffened.
But then the feel of his arms came to her-the feel that she had scarcely been conscious of yesterday when the dark water lay at her feet,-and she blushed, and studied her plate diligently.
Under this cover, the young ranchman comforted Mary, whom the others had temporarily forgotten, with a long, caressing look from his handsome eyes that was a pledge of tireless vigilance and an unforgetting watchfulness of future protection.
CHAPTER XVI
THE TRIAL
The next morning, every available seat was filled early. People had blocked the rough plank walks leading to the court-house long before the doors were unlocked. The day promised to be fine, and the many teams coming and going between Kemah and the river to pick up the Velpen people who had crossed the ice on foot gave to the little town somewhat of the gala appearance of fair time. The stately and blanketed Sioux from their temporary camps on the flat were standing around, uncommunicative, waiting for proceedings to begin. Long before the judicial party had arrived from the hotel, the cramped room was crowded to its limits. There was loud talking, laughing, and joking. Local wits amused themselves and others by throwing quips at different members of the county bar or their brethren from across the river, as they walked to their places inside the railings with the little mannerisms that were peculiar to each. Some swaggered with their importance; others bore themselves with a ludicrous and exaggerated dignity; while a refreshing few, with absolute self-unconsciousness, sat down for the work in hand.
The witty cowboys, restrained by no bothersome feelings of delicacy, took off every one in running asides that kept the room in uproar. Men who did not chew tobacco ate peanuts.
The door in the rear of the bar opened and Judge Dale entered. A comparative quiet fell upon the people. He mounted to his high bench.
The clerk came in, then the court reporter. She tossed her note books on the table, leisurely pulled off her gloves and took her place, examining the ends of her pencils with a critical eye. It would be a busy day for the "gal reporter." Then Langford came shoving his way down the crowded aisle with a sad-faced, brown-eyed, young woman in his wake, who yet held herself erect with a proud little tilt to her chin. There was not an empty seat outside the bar. Louise motioned, and he escorted Mary to a place within and sat down beside her. The jurymen were all in their chairs. Presently came in Gordon with his quiet, self-reliant manner.
Langford had been right. The County Attorney was not tired to-day.
Shortly after Gordon came Small-Small, the dynamic, whose explosives had so often laid waste the weak and abortive independent reasoning powers of "Old Necessity" and his sort, and were the subject of much satire and some admiration when the legal fraternity talked "shop." As he strode to his place, he radiated bombs of just and telling wrath. He scintillated with aggressiveness. With him came Jesse Black, easy and disdainful as of old. After them, a small man came gliding in with as little commotion as if he were sliding over the floor of a waxed dancing hall in patent-leather pumps. He was an una.s.suming little man with quick, cat-like movements which one lost if one were not on the alert. When he had slipped into a chair next to his a.s.sociate, Small, the inflammable Small, towered above him head and shoulders.
"Every inch the criminal," audibly observed a stranger, an Englishman over to invest in lands for stocking a horse ranch. "Strange how they always wear the imprint on their faces. No escaping it. I fancy that is what the Scriptures meant by the mark of Cain."
The remark was addressed to no one in particular, but it reached the ears of Jim Munson, who was standing near.
"Good Lord, man!" he said, with a grin, "that"s the plumb smartest criminal lawyer in the hull county. That"s a fac". Lord, Lord! Him Jesse Black?"
His risibilities continued to thus get the better of his gravity at frequent intervals during the day. He never failed to snort aloud in pure delight whenever he thought of it. What a tale for the boys when he could get to them!
"These cattle men!" This time the tenderfoot communicated with himself-he had a square chin and a direct eye; there were possibilities in him. "Their perverted sense of the ridiculous is diabolical."
There were others who did not know the little man. He hailed from the southern part of the State. But Gordon knew him. He knew he was pitted against one of the sharpest, shrewdest men of his day.
"Gentlemen, I think we are ready," said the Judge, and the game was on again.
The State called Paul Langford, its princ.i.p.al witness in default of Williston.
"Your name, place of residence, and business?" asked the counsel for the State.
"Paul Langford. I reside in Kemah County, and I own and operate a cattle ranch."
After Langford had clearly described and identified the animal in question, Gordon continued:
"Mr. Langford, when did you first miss this steer?"
"On the fifteenth day of July last."
"How did you happen to miss this steer?"
"My attention was called to the fact that an animal answering this description and bearing my brand had been seen under suspicious detention."
"Prior to information thus received, you were not aware this creature had either strayed away or been stolen?"
"I was not."
"Who gave you this information, Mr. Langford?"
"George Williston of the Lazy S."
"Now you may tell the jury in what words Williston told you about the steer he saw."
This, of course, was objected to and the objection was sustained by the court, as Gordon knew it would be. He only wanted the jury to remember that Williston could have told a damaging story had he been here, and also to remember how mysteriously this same Williston had disappeared.
He could not have Williston or Williston"s story, but he might keep an impression ever before these twelve men that there was a story-he knew it and they knew it,-a story of which some crotchet of the law forbade the telling.
"What did you do after your attention had been called to the suspicious circ.u.mstances of the steer"s detention?"
"I informed my boys of what I had heard, and sent them out to look for the steer."
"That same day?"
"Yes."
"Were they successful?"
"No."
"Did this steer have a particular stamping ground?"
"He did."
"Where was that?"
"He always ranged with a bunch on what we call the home range."
"Near the ranch house?"
"Within half a mile."
"Did you look for him yourself?"
"I did."
"He was not on this home grazing ground?"