ctly?"

"Well, sir, I was windin' the clock for the night."

"Sure your clock was right?"

"Yes, sir. I happened to check up on it when the court-house clock
struck nine. Mebbe it was half a minute off, as you might say."

"Describe the man."

Hull did, with more or less accuracy.

"Would you know him if you saw him again?"

"Yes, sir, I sure would."

The coroner flung a question at the witness as though it were a weapon,
"Ever carry a gun, Mr. Hull?"

The big man on the stand dabbed at his veined face with the bandanna.
He answered, with an ingratiating whine. "I ain't no gunman, sir.
Never was."

"Ever ride the range?"

"Well, yes, as you might say," the witness answered uneasily.

"Carried a six-shooter for rattlesnakes, didn't you?"

"I reckon, but I never went hellin' around with it."

"Wore it to town with you when you went, I expect, as the other boys
did."

"Mebbeso."

"What caliber was it?"

"A .38, sawed-off."

"Own it now?"

The witness mopped his fat face. "No, sir."

"Don't carry a gun in town?"

"No, sir."

"Ever own an automatic?"

"No, sir. Wouldn't know how to fire one."

"How long since you sold your .38?"

"Five years or so."

"Where did you carry it?"

"In my hip pocket."

"Which hip pocket?"

Hull was puzzled at the question. "Why, this one--the right one, o'
course. There wouldn't be any sense in carryin' it where I couldn't
reach it."

"That's so. Mr. Johns, you may take the witness again."

The young lawyer asked questions about the Dry Valley irrigation
project. He wanted to know why there was dissatisfaction among the
farmers, and from a reluctant witness drew the information that the
water supply was entirely inadequate for the needs of the land under
cultivation.

Mrs. Hull, called to the stand, testified that on the evening of the
twenty-third a man had knocked at their door to ask in which apartment
Mr. Cunningham lived. She had gone to the door, answered his question,
and watched him pass upstairs.

"What time was this?"

"9.20."

Again Kirby felt a tide of excitement running in his arteries. Why
were this woman and her husband setting back the clock thirty-five
minutes? Was it to divert suspicion from themselves? Was it to show
that this stranger must have been in Cunningham's rooms for almost an
hour, during which time the millionaire promoter had been murdered?

"Describe the man."

This tall, angular woman, whose sex t