adjourned and the following Monday the Bell Circuit
Court convened. The first case of importance on the docket was that of
the Commonwealth against Saylor for the murder of Caleb Spencer.

Saturday afternoon, before Mr. Rogers left for Hagan, Virginia on his
way to Pittsburgh, he said:

"Mr. Cornwall, go to Pineville Monday and begin the abstracts of the
Brock and Helton titles to the land the company bought on Straight
Creek."

Cornwall, a poor horseman, not yet hardened to such exercise, broke the
ride by traveling down the river, Sunday afternoon and over Salt Trace
to the Saylor home; not wholly unmindful that Mary was a good looking
girl and agreeable company.

When he rode up, the house had a deserted appearance. Mrs. Saylor and
Susie were in the barn milking. All the rest of the family had gone to
Pineville to be present at the trial, and Susie and her mother were
leaving the next day.

He lay awake half the night thinking of Mary and his mother and
listening to the penetrating tones of a hoot owl far up the mountain
side. The house did not seem the same as the one at which he had stopped
less than a month before. He was homesick and felt inclined to return to
Louisville.

When he rode into Pineville at noon the next day he found the hotel
crowded with visiting lawyers and litigants. The Commonwealth's
attorney told him that the Saylor case was set for hearing the following
morning and that the prosecution was ready for trial. He also learned
that Saylor was treating the case as a joke and had employed Squire
Putman to represent him for twenty-five dollars; which he said was a big
price for the services he would or could render. "I can always depend
upon the Squire to help convict his client. It is a mystery to the bar
how he ever obtained license to practice law."

In the evening Cornwall visited the other hotel and a large boarding
house in search of the Saylors but was unable to find any of them.

When the court house bell rang in the morning he went over, and up the
stairway, into the court room, just as the judge called for motions.
Introduced by the commonwealth's attorney he was sworn in as a
practicing attorney of the Bell Circuit Court.

He expected to see some of the Saylor family seated beyond the railing,
but again was disappointed; nor did he find them after a search through
the corridors and public offices. He then went into the county clerk's
office and began making an abstract of the B