before I was wide-awake I heard a pistol shot. I ran down the
stairs and out into the back of the house, as I do when there is
trouble, and wait until I think it is over. Then, after listening a
while, everything perfectly quiet, I go out into the bar where I left
them and it was empty; but on the floor I see a pistol; I look at it
and it is discharged; then I go into the other rooms, no one. Then I
hear the crowd crying, I look out the door--there I see him!"

It seemed to me I couldn't bear to hear any more, and I stopped my ears
until I saw the lawyer for the prosecution sit down. But as soon as he
was down the lawyer for the defense was on his feet, and had begun
asking a lot of questions that seemed to me very foolish, and very
little concerned with Johnny Montgomery. Then, without seeming to have
made any point at all, Mr. Jackson sat down; the Mexican came down from
the witness-stand, the judge left his place and went out through a door
at the back, and a man who had been hovering on the outskirts of the
lawyers' table, hurried to Mr. Dingley, and whispered something to him.
Instead of coming over to speak with us, as I had expected, Mr. Dingley
went hastily out of the room. Father left me to speak with a man on
the other side of the court; and, among all the standing and walking
and going out, Johnny Montgomery and I were the only ones who sat quite
still.

As yet I saw him in profile. He was leaning forward, his elbows on the
table; now and then he ran his fingers through his hair. Once I
thought he was going to drop his head in his hands; but after an
instant's drooping he threw it up sharply with a sort of shake that
tossed the long locks out of his eyes, and faced around in his chair
and saw me. He didn't seem surprised at finding me there. I couldn't
be sure that he had not known just where I was all the while; but
though he looked at me so steadily it was not, somehow, like a stare.
He did not look, at me quite as if I were a human being, but as if I
were a statue or a picture. He was the one who turned away. Then I
sat looking at the back of his head.

There was a murmur of talk all through the room, but above it I heard
two men behind me greeting each other.

One said, "Well, what's the game? Is she a stricken widow or a hopeful
fiancee?"

"A little of both, I guess," the other answered. "She's been pretty
good to Rood--ten years--but he was getting gray and fat, and the fair
Carlott