his whole future did depend upon it. You would think that Aleck
Douglas could not be convicted of murder just because he had reported
that a man was shot down in Aleck's house.

The report of Aleck Douglas' trial is not the main feature of this
story; it is merely the commencement, one might say. Therefore, I am
going to be brief as I can and still give you a clear idea of the
situation, and then I am going to skip the next three years and begin
where the real story begins.

Aleck's position was dishearteningly simple, and there was nothing much
that one could do to soften the facts or throw a new light on the
murder. Lite watched, wide awake and eager, many a night for the
return of that prowler, but he never saw or heard a thing that gave him
any clue whatever. So the footprints seemed likely to remain the
mystery they had seemed on the morning when he discovered them. He
laid traps, pretending to ride away from the ranch to town before dark,
and returning cautiously by way of the trail down the bluff behind the
house. But nothing came of it. Lazy A ranch was keeping its secret
well, and by the time the trial was begun, Lite had given up hope. Once
he believed the house had been visited in the daytime, during his
absence in town, but he could not be sure of that.

Jean went to Chinook and stayed there, so that Lite saw her seldom.
Carl also was away much of the time, trying by every means he could
think of to swing public opinion and the evidence in Aleck's favor. He
prevailed upon Rossman, who was Montana's best-known lawyer, to defend
the case, for one thing. He seemed to pin his faith almost wholly upon
Rossman, and declared to every one that Aleck would never be convicted.
It would be, he maintained, impossible to convict him, with Rossman
handling the case; and he always added the statement that you can't
send an innocent man to jail, if things are handled right.

Perhaps he did not, after all, handle things right. For in spite of
Rossman, and Aleck's splendid reputation, and the meager evidence
against him, he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight
years in Deer Lodge penitentiary.

Rossman had made a great speech, and had made men in the jury blink
back unshed tears. But he could not shake from them the belief that
Aleck Douglas had ridden home and met Johnny Croft, calmly making
himself at home in the Lazy A kitchen. He could not convince them that
there had not been a quarre