was a grand chance to clean out Emerson's enemies, for good
and all, and make an end of 'em, so that he could live here in peace.
It was plumb ridiculous not to do it."

CHAPTER XIX

The grand jury sat upon the Whittaker case and returned a true bill
against Emerson Mead, indicting him for the murder of Will Whittaker.
Mead was confined in the jail at Las Plumas to await his trial, which
would not take place until the following autumn. The finding of Will
Whittaker's body convinced many who had formerly believed in his
innocence that Mead was guilty. Everybody knew that his usual practice
in shooting was to fire three quick shots, so rapidly that the three
explosions were almost a continuous sound, pause an instant, and then,
if necessary, fire three more in the same way. The three bullets were
pretty sure to go where he meant they should, and if he wished he
could put them so close together that the ragged edges of the holes
touched one another, as did those in the back of Whittaker's corpse.
It was the number and character of those bullet holes that made many
of Mead's friends believe that he was guilty of the murder. "Nobody
but Emerson could have put those bullets in like that," they said to
themselves, although publicly the Democrats all loudly and
persistently insisted that he was innocent.

In the constant debate over the matter which followed the finding of
the body the Democrats contended that the two men who had held Thomson
Tuttle captive all night near the White Sands must have been the
murderers. And it was on them and their mysterious conduct that Judge
Harlin rested his only hope for his client. The lawyer did not believe
they had Whittaker's body in their wagon, although he intended to try
to make the jury think so. Privately he believed that Mead was guilty,
but he admitted this to no one, and in his talks with Mead he
constantly assumed that his client was innocent. He had never asked
Mead to tell him whether or not he had committed the murder.

Nick Ellhorn and Tom Tuttle lingered about Las Plumas for a short
time, sending their gold to the mint, and trying to contrive some
scheme by which Emerson Mead could be forced into liberty. Each of
them felt it a keen personal injury that their friend was in jail, and
they were ready to forego everything else if they could induce him to
break his promise and with them make a wild dash for freedom. But he
would listen to none of their plans and told