ly came in and seated themselves far back in the shadow, where
they could watch the doorway of the bank.

It was quite a half-hour before Shiel Crozier emerged from the bank. His
face was set and pale. For an instant he stood as though wondering which
way to go, then he moved up the street the way he had come.

Sibley heard a low, poisonous laugh of triumph rankle through the
hotel office. He turned round. Bradley, the over-fed, over-confident,
over-estimated financier, laid a hand on the shoulder of his companion
as they moved towards the door.

"That's another gate shut," he said. "I guess we can close 'em all with
a little care. It's working all right. He's got no chance of raising the
cash," he added, as the two passed the chair where Sibley sat--with his
hat over his eyes, chewing an unlighted cigar.

"I don't know what it is, but it's dirt--and muck at that," John Sibley
remarked as he rose from his chair and followed the two into the street.

Bradley and his friends were trying steadily to close up the avenues of
credit to the man to whom the success of his enterprise meant so much.
To crowd him out would mean an extra hundred and fifty thousand dollars
for themselves.

CHAPTER III. THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME OF IT

What the case was in which Shiel Crozier was to give evidence is not
important; what came from the giving of his testimony is all that
matters; and this story would never have been written if he had not
entered the witness-box.

A court-room at any time seems a little warmer than any other spot
to all except the prisoner; but on a July day it is likely to be a
punishment for both innocent and guilty. A man had been killed by one
of the group of toughs called locally the M'Mahon Gang, and against the
charge of murder that of manslaughter had been set up in defence; and
manslaughter might mean jail for a year or two or no jail at all. Any
evidence which justified the charge of murder would mean not jail, but
the rope in due course; for this was not Montana or Idaho, where the
law's delays outlasted even the memory of the crime committed.

The court-room of Askatoon was crowded to suffocation, for the M'Mahons
were detested, and the murdered man had a good reputation in the
district. Besides, a widow and three children mourned their loss, and
the widow was in court. Also Crozier's evidence was expected to be
sensational, and to prove the swivel on which the fate of the accused
man woul