Carmody decided to call young Kitsong, and Throop led Rita away and soon returned with Henry, who came into the room looking like a trapped fox, bewildered yet alert. He was rumpled and dirty, like one called from sleep in a corral, but his face appealed to the heart of his mother, who flung herself toward him with a piteous word of appeal, eager to let him know that she was present and faithful.
The sheriff stopped her, and her husband--whose parental love was much less vital--called upon her not to make a fool of herself.
The boy gave his name and age, and stated his relationship to the dead man, but declared he had not seen him for months. "I didn"t know he was dead till the ranger told me," he said. He denied that he had had any trouble with Watson. "He is my uncle," he added.
"I"ve known relatives to fight," commented the coroner, with dry intonation, and several in the audience laughed, for it was well known to them that the witness was at outs not only with his uncle, but with his father.
"Now, Henry," said the coroner, severely, "we know this girl, Rita, made a night visit to Watson"s cabin. We have absolute proof of it. She did not go there alone. Who was with her? Did you accompany her on this trip?"
"_No_, sir."
"She never made that trip alone. Some man was with her. If not you, it must have been Busby."
A sullen look came into the boy"s face. "Well, it wasn"t me--I know that."
"Was it Busby?"
He paused for a long time, debating what the effect of his answer would be. "He may of. I can"t say."
Carmody restated his proof that Rita had been there and said: "One or the other of you went. Now which was it?"
The witness writhed like a tortured animal, and at last said, "He did,"
and Mrs. Eli sighed with relief.
Carmody drew from him the fact that Watson owed Busby money, and that he had vainly tried to collect it. He would not say that Rita left camp with Busby, but his keen anxiety to protect her was evident to every one in the room. He admitted that he expected Busby to have trouble with Watson.
Mrs. Kitsong, who saw with growing anxiety the drift of the coroner"s questioning, called out: "Tell him the truth, Henry; the whole truth!"
Raines silenced her savagely, and Carmody said: "So Busby had tried to collect that money before, had he?"
"Tell him "yes," Henry," shouted Eli, who was now quite as eager to shield his son as he had been to convict Helen.
Carmody warned him to be quiet. "You"ll have a chance very soon to testify on this very point," he said, and repeated his question: "Busby had had a fight with Watson, hadn"t he--a regular knockdown row?"
Henry, sweating with fear, now confessed that Busby had returned from Watson"s place furious with anger, and this testimony gave an entirely new direction to the suspicions of the jurors, several of whom knew Busby as a tough customer.
Dismissing Henry for the moment, Carmody recalled Margarita. "You swear you never visited Watson"s cabin?" he began. "Well, suppose that I were to tell you that we know you did, would you still deny it?" She looked at him in scared silence, trying to measure the force of his question, while he went on: "You mounted the front steps and went down the porch to the right, pausing to peer into the window. You kept on to the east end of the porch, where you dropped to the ground, and continued on around to the back door. Do you deny that?"
Amazed by the accuracy of his information and awed by his tone, the girl struggled for an answer, while the audience waited as at a crisis in a powerful play.
Then the coroner snapped out, "Well, what were you doing there?"
She looked at Henry, then at Mrs. Eli. "I went to borrow some blankets,"
she confessed, in a voice so low that only a few heard her words.
"Was Watson at home?"
"Yes."
"Did you see him?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
At this point she became tearful, and the most that could be drawn from her was a statement that Watson had refused to loan or sell her any blankets. She denied that Busby was with her, and insisted that she was alone till Carmody convinced her that she was only making matters worse by such replies.
"Your visit was at night," he said. "You would never have walked in that flour in the daytime, and you wouldn"t have gone there alone in the night. Busby wouldn"t have permitted you to go to Watson"s alone--he knew Watson too well." The force of this remark was felt by nearly every person in the room.
Hanscom said: "Mr. Coroner, this girl is trying to shield Busby, and I want her confronted by him, and I want Eli Kitsong called."
By this time many admitted that they might have been mistaken in accusing the Kauffmans of the deed.
Busby, a powerful young fellow, made a bad impression on the stand. His face was both sullen and savage, and the expression of his eyes furtive.
He was plainly on guard even before Raines warned him to be careful.
"My name is Hart Busby," he said, in answer to Carmody. "I"m twenty-six years old. I was born in the East. I"ve been here eight years." Here he stopped, refusing to say where his parents lived or when he first met Margarita. He flatly denied having had any serious trouble with Watson, and declared that he had not seen him for almost a year.
"What were you doing in the Kauffmans" cabin?" demanded Hanscom. "You won"t deny my finding you there, will you?"
He told the same story that Rita had sworn to. "We were riding by and saw that the place was deserted, and so we went in to look around."
"When did _you_ first hear of Watson"s death?" asked Carmody.
The witness hesitated. A look of doubt, of evasion, in his eyes. "Why, the ranger told us."
"Which of you owns that sorrel horse?" asked one of the jury.
Raines again interposed. "You needn"t answer that," he warned. "That"s not before the court."
Carmody went on. "Now, Busby, you might as well tell us the truth. Henry and Rita both state that Watson had refused to pay you, and that you had a sc.r.a.p and Watson kicked you off the place. Is that true?"
Raines rescued him. "You don"t have to answer that," he said, and the witness breathed an almost inaudible sigh of relief.
A violent altercation arose at this point between the coroner and the lawyer. Carmody insisted on his right to ask any question he saw fit, and Raines retorted that the witness had a right to refuse to incriminate himself.
"You stick to your bread pills and vials," he said to the coroner, "and don"t a.s.sume a knowledge of the law. You become ridiculous when you do."
"I know my powers," retorted Carmody in high resentment, "and you keep a civil tongue in your head or I"ll fine you for contempt. I may not know all the ins and outs of court procedure, but I"m going to see justice done, and I"m going to see that you keep your place."
"You can"t steam-roll me," roared Raines.
The argument became so hot that Throop was forced to interfere, and in the excitement and confusion of the moment Busby mad a dash for the door, and would have escaped had not Hanscom intercepted him. The room was instantly in an uproar. Several of Busby"s friends leaped to his aid, and for a few minutes it seemed as if the coroner"s court had resolved itself into an arena for battling bears. Busby fought desperately, and might have gained his freedom, after all, had not Rawlins taken a hand.
At last Throop came into action. "Stop that!" he shouted, and fetched Busby a blow that ended his struggles for the moment. "Let go of him, Hanscom," he said. "I"ll attend to him."
Hanscom and Rawlins fell back, and Throop, placing one huge paw on the outlaw"s shoulder, shoved the muzzle of a revolver against his neck.
"Now you calm right down, young man, and remember you"re in court and not in a barroom."