Part 43 (1/2)

Hammer was a bit uppish and resentful. He stood on his rights; he invoked the sacred const.i.tution; he referred to the revised statutes; he put his hand into his coat and spread his legs to make a memorable protest.

Judge Maxwell took him in hand very kindly and led safely past the point of explosion with a smile of indulgence. With that done, the state came to Constable Bill Frost and his branching mustaches, which he had trimmed up and soaped back quite handsomely.

To his own credit and the surprise of the lawyers who were watching the case, Hammer made a great deal of the point of Joe having gone to Frost, voluntarily and alone, to summon him to the scene of the tragedy. Frost admitted that he had believed Joe's story until Sol Greening had pointed out to him the suspicious circ.u.mstances.

”So you have to have somebody else to do your thinkin' for you, do you?”

said Hammer. ”Well, you're a fine officer of the law and a credit to this state!”

”I object!” said the prosecuting attorney, standing up in his place, very red around the eyes.

The judge smiled, and the court-room t.i.ttered. The sheriff looked back over his shoulder and rapped the table for order.

”Comment is unnecessary, Mr. Hammer,” said the judge. ”Proceed with the case.”

And so that weary day pa.s.sed in trivial questioning on both sides, trivial bickerings, and waste of time, to the great edifications of everybody but Joe and his mother, and probably the judge. Ten of the state's forty witnesses were disposed of, and Hammer was as moist as a jug of cold water in a shock of wheat.

When the sheriff started to take Joe back to jail, the lad stood for a moment searching the breaking-up and moving a.s.sembly with longing eyes.

All day he had sat with his back to the people, not having the heart to look around with that shameful handcuff and chain binding his arm to the chair. If Alice had been there, or Colonel Price, neither had come forward to wish him well.

There were Ollie and her mother, standing as they had risen from their bench, waiting for the crowd ahead of them to set in motion toward the door, and here and there a face from his own neighborhood. But Alice was not among them. She had withdrawn her friends.h.i.+p from him in his darkest hour.

Neither had Morgan appeared to put his shoulder under the hard-pressing load and relieve him of its weight. Day by day it was growing heavier; but a little while remained until it must crush out his hope forever.

Certainly, there was a way out without Morgan; there was a way open to him leading back into the freedom of the world, where he might walk again with the sunlight on his face. A word would make it clear.

But the sun would never strike again into his heart if he should go back to it under that coward's reprieve, and Alice--Alice would scorn his memory.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BLOW OF A FRIEND

Progress was swifter the next day. The prosecuting attorney, apparently believing that he had made his case, dismissed many of his remaining witnesses who had nothing to testify to in fact. When he announced that the state rested, there was a murmur and rustling in the room, and audibly expressed wonderment over what the public thought to be a grave blunder on Sam Lucas's part.

The state had not called the widow of Isom Chase to the stand to give testimony against the man accused of her husband's murder. The public could not make it out. What did it mean? Did the prosecutor hold her more of an enemy than a friend to his efforts to convict the man whose hand had made her a widow? Whispers went around, grave faces were drawn, wise heads wagged. Public charity for Ollie began to falter.

”Him and that woman,” men said, nodding toward Joe, sitting pale and inscrutable beside his bl.u.s.tering lawyer.

The feeling of impending sensation became more acute when it circulated through the room, starting from Captain Taylor at the inner door, that Ollie had been summoned as a witness for the defense; Captain Taylor had served the subpoena himself.

”Well, in that case, Sam Lucas knew what he was doing,” people allowed.

”Just wait!” It was as good as a spirituous stimulant to their lagging interest. ”Just you wait till Sam Lucas gets hold of her,” they said.

Hammer began the defense by calling his character witnesses and establis.h.i.+ng Joe's past reputation for ”truth and veracity and general uprightness.”

There was no question in the character which Joe's neighbors gave him.

They spoke warmly of his past record among them, of his fidelity to his word and obligation, and of the family record, which Hammer went into with free and unhampered hand.