and geologists
who professed to see through the earth, and before her gaze he halted
and blenched. There was another person there who regarded him coldly
with a glance like a rapier thrust; but it was not of Stoddard he was
afraid. It was of Mary Fortune, who had come out against him and who
could hear through walls with her 'phone. What she knew might have
helped him, but she was against him now--and she had told him in
advance that he would lose.

As Rimrock sat thinking, his eyes cast down and his mind far back in
the past, a great blow was struck by the bailiff's mallet and the crowd
rose up to its feet. A stern-faced judge, robed in the black cloak of
his office, stepped out through the curtains behind the bench and as
Rimrock stared the bailiff beckoned him sharply and he scrambled to his
feet with the rest.

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" cried the bailiff in the words that echoed of the
past. "The United States District Court is now in session!"

He struck again as the judge took his seat and Rimrock sank down into
his chair. But he had stood in respect to the majesty of the law and
it was then that his hunch came back. For this was no appeal to an
elected judge or the easily swayed emotions of a jury; it was an appeal
to the cold, passionless mind of a man who considered nothing but the
law.

Ike Bray was there, looking pinched and scared, and the two guards who
had witnessed his relocation, and they testified to the facts. In vain
Rimrock's lawyers orated and thundered or artfully framed up their long
questions; it took days to do it, but when the testimony was all in it
was apparent that Ike Bray's claim would hold. But this was only the
beginning of the battle, the skirmish to feel out the ground; and now
the defense brought up its big guns. One after the other they put
experts on the stand to testify to the geology of the Tecolote; but
Cummins and Ford produced others as eminent who testified to the
opposite effect. So the battle raged until the wearied judge limited
the profitless discussion to one more day, and then Cummins and Ford
launched their bombshell.

"Your Honor," began Cummins as he rose with a great document. "I
should like to introduce as evidence this report, which unfortunately
has only just come to hand. As Your Honor has intimated the testimony
of hired experts is always open to suspicion of bias, and especially
where great interests are at stake; but I am able to offer for the