before I could finish the answer, but that there was a commotion below,
which I hastened to profit by, adding, "But I brought her husband to meet
her, and found him a situation in a creamery."

"It is true, every word of it!" a shrill voice rose up, and the murmuring
grew louder in the body of the court, while it pleased me to see that the
riders of Carrington vied with our humbler neighbors in this sign of
approval. Then some one sternly called "Silence!" and the examination
commenced again.

"I must protest against friends of the witness coming here to create a
disturbance," said the barrister. "They are all owners of cattle, and
accordingly filled with prejudice. This is a court of justice, and not a
cow-boy's tribunal under the laws of Lynch."

"That is my province," interposed the judge, "and if the disturbance is
repeated I shall know how to deal with it."

The barrister bowed as he rearranged his papers, and I felt murderously
inclined toward him when, leaning on the rail in an impressive attitude,
he continued: "I must next ask the witness whether Mrs. Fletcher did or
did not visit him alone at his house, and remain for some time there?
Also, when her husband most naturally came to inquire for her, whether he
was not threatened with violence, and driven away at the muzzle of a
loaded rifle? I want a direct answer. Yes or no."

The prosecution challenged the necessity for such a question, but after
some verbal fencing between the lawyers and the judge it was allowed.

"In the first case I was not alone," I said, looking straight at my
adversary. "In the second I was absent, and did not threaten him."

"He was to your knowledge threatened?"

"Yes."

"Do you know that shortly after leaving your house he was murderously
assaulted as a result of his visit?"

"I believe that some one flung him into a muddy sloo, and I was not sorry
to hear it."

"That is sufficient," said the examiner, with a significant smile toward
the jury. "He was threatened with a loaded rifle for inquiring as to his
wife's whereabouts; then murderously assaulted. Next you work up this
charge against him. You may sit down."

I understood that the judge made some comments here, but I was too savage
to hear clearly, and scarcely caught what followed next, until Jasper was
placed on the witness stand, and stated that he had given no authority to
any one except myself to sell the cattle, which he swore to, with other
details which were