g wave of degradation and now he stood with bowed
head and averted face.

"Come on," said the sheriff, goggling down at him with froggish eyes
from his vantage on the dais where the witness-chair stood, his long
neck on a slant like a giraffe's. The sheriff took great pleasure in the
proceeding of attaching the irons. It was his one central moment in the
eyes of the throng.

Joe looked up to march ahead of the sheriff out of the room, and his
eyes met the eyes of Alice. She was not far away, and the cheer of their
quick message was like a spoken word. She was wearing the same gray
dress that she had worn on that day of days, with the one bright feather
in her bonnet, and she smiled, nodding to him. And then the swirl of
bobbing heads and moving bodies came between them and she was lost.

He looked for her again as the sheriff pushed him along toward the door,
but the room was in such confusion that he could not single her out. The
judge had gone out through his tall, dark door, and the court-room was
no longer an awesome place to those who had gathered for the trial. Men
put their hats on their heads and lit their pipes, and bit into their
twists and plugs of tobacco and emptied their mouths of the juices as
they went slowly toward the door.

Mrs. Greening was the first witness called by Hammer after the noon
recess. Hammer quickly discovered his purpose in calling her as being
nothing less than that of proving by her own mouth that her husband,
Sol, was a gross and irresponsible liar.

Hammer went over the whole story of the tragedy--Mrs. Greening having
previously testified to all these facts as a witness for the state--from
the moment that Sol had called her out of bed and taken her to the Chase
home to support the young widow in her hour of distraction and fear. By
slow and lumbering ways he led her, like a blind horse floundering along
a heavy road, through the front door, up the stairs into Ollie's room,
and then, in his own time and fashion, he arrived at what he wanted to
ask.

"Now I want you to tell this jury, Mrs. Greening, if at any time, during
that night or thereafter, you discussed or talked of or chatted about
the killing of Isom Chase with your husband?" asked Hammer.

"Oh laws, yes," said Mrs. Greening.

The prosecuting attorney was rising slowly to his feet. He seemed
concentrated on something; a frown knotted his brow, and he stood with
his open hand poised as if to reach out quickly and che