inct told him the day that the Red Fox, too,
was sentenced to death-he saw it in the gray pallour of the old man's
face, and he cackled his glee like a demon. For the evidence against
the Red Fox was too strong. Where June sat as chief witness against Rufe
Tolliver--John Hale sat as chief witness against the Red Fox. He could
not swear it was a cartridge shell that he saw the old man pick up, but
it was something that glistened in the sun, and a moment later he
had found the shell in the old man's pocket--and if it had been fired
innocently, why was it there and why was the old man searching for it?
He was looking, he said, for evidence of the murderer himself. That
claim made, the Red Fox's lawyer picked up the big rifle and the shell.

"You say, Mr. Hale, the prisoner told you the night you spent at his
home that this rifle was rim-fire?"

"He did." The lawyer held up the shell.

"You see this was exploded in such a rifle." That was plain, and the
lawyer shoved the shell into the rifle, pulled the trigger, took it out,
and held it up again. The plunger had struck below the rim and near the
centre, but not quite on the centre, and Hale asked for the rifle and
examined it closely.

"It's been tampered with," he said quietly, and he handed it to the
prosecuting attorney. The fact was plain; it was a bungling job and
better proved the Red Fox's guilt. Moreover, there were only two such
big rifles in all the hills, and it was proven that the man who
owned the other was at the time of the murder far away. The days of
brain-storms had not come then. There were no eminent Alienists to prove
insanity for the prisoner. Apparently, he had no friends--none save the
little old woman in black who sat by his side, hour by hour and day by
day.

And the Red Fox was doomed.

In the hush of the Court Room the Judge solemnly put to the gray face
before him the usual question:

"Have you anything to say whereby sentence of death should not be
pronounced on you?"

The Red Fox rose:

"No," he said in a shaking voice; "but I have a friend here who I would
like to speak for me." The Judge bent his head a moment over his bench
and lifted it:

"It is unusual," he said; "but under the circumstances I will grant
your request. Who is your friend?" And the Red Fox made the souls of his
listeners leap.

"Jesus Christ," he said.

The Judge reverently bowed his head and the hush of the Court Room grew
deeper when the old man fished hi