he years had seemed to have dried
out of her personality, made a much better witness than her husband.
She was acid and incisive, but her very forbidding aspect hinted of the
"good woman" who never made mistakes. She described the stranger who
had knocked at her door with a good deal of circumstantial detail.

"He was an outdoor man, a rancher, perhaps, or more likely a
cattleman," she concluded.

"You have not seen him since that time?"

She opened her lips to say "No," but she did not say it. Her eyes had
traveled past the lawyer and fixed themselves on Kirby Lane. He saw
the recognition grow in them, the leap of triumph in her as the long,
thin arm shot straight toward him.

"That's the man!"

A tremendous excitement buzzed in the courtroom. It was as though some
one had exploded a mental bomb. Men and women craned forward to see
the man who had been identified, the man who no doubt had murdered
James Cunningham. The murmur of voices, the rustle of skirts, the
shuffling of moving bodies filled the air.

The coroner rapped for order. "Silence in the court-room," he said
sharply.

"Which man do you mean, Mrs. Hull?" asked the lawyer.

"The big brown man sittin' at the end of the front bench, the one right
behind you."

Kirby rose. "Think prob'ly she means me," he suggested.

An officer in uniform passed down the aisle and laid a hand on the
cattleman's shoulder. "You're under arrest," he said.

"For what, officer?" asked James Cunningham.

"For the murder of your uncle, sir."

In the tense silence that followed rose a little throat sound that was
not quite a sob and not quite a wail. Kirby turned his head toward the
back of the room.

Wild Rose was standing in her place looking at him with dilated eyes
filled with incredulity and horror.

CHAPTER XIII

"ALWAYS, PHYLLIS"

"Chuck" Ellis, reporter, testified that on his way home from the Press
Club on the night of the twenty-third, he stopped at an alley on
Glenarm Street to strike a light for his cigar. Just as he lit the
match he saw a man come out from the window of a room in the Paradox
Apartments and run down the fire escape. It struck him that the man
might be a burglar, so he waited in the shadow of the building. The
runner came down the alley toward him. He stopped the man and had some
talk with him. At the request of the district attorney's assistant he
detailed the conversation and located on a chart shown him the room