llow. "Do you know this pistol?" he asked.

Longfellow was almost insulted by the question. Of course he knew his
own pistol. He recited the serial number, and pointed to different scars
and scratches on the weapon, telling how they had been acquired.

"The court accepts that Mr. Longfellow knows his own weapon," Nelson
said. "I assume that this is the weapon with which you claim to have
shot Jack-High Abe Bonney?"

It was, although Longfellow resented the qualification.

"That's all. Your witness, Mr. Sidney," Goodham said.

Sidney began an immediate attack.

Questioning Longfellow's eyesight, intelligence, honesty and integrity,
he tried to show personal enmity toward the Bonneys. He implied that
Longfellow had been conspiring with Cumshaw to bring about the conquest
of New Texas by the Solar League. The verbal exchange became so heated
that both witness and attorney had to be admonished repeatedly from the
bench. But at no point did Sidney shake Longfellow from his one
fundamental statement, that the Bonney brothers had shot Silas Cumshaw
and that he had shot Jack-High Abe Bonney in the shoulder.

When he was finished, I got up and took over.

"Mr. Longfellow, you say that Mr. Thrombley answered the screen at the
Solar League Embassy," I began. "You know Mr. Thrombley?"

"Sure, Mr. Silk. He's been out at the ranch with Mr. Cumshaw a lotta
times."

"Well, beside yourself and Colonel Hickock and Mr. Cumshaw and,
possibly, Mr. Thrombley, who else knew that Mr. Cumshaw would be at the
ranch at 1030 on that morning?"

Nobody. But the aircar had obviously been waiting for Mr. Cumshaw; the
Bonneys must have had advance knowledge. My questions made that point
clear despite the obvious--and reluctantly court-sustained--objections
from Mr. Sidney.

"That will be all, Mr. Longfellow; thank you. Any questions from anybody
else?"

There being none, Longfellow stepped down. It was then a few minutes
before noon, so Judge Nelson recessed court for an hour and a half.

In the afternoon, the surgeon who had treated Jack-High Abe Bonney's
wounded shoulder testified, identifying the bullet which had been
extracted from Bonney's shoulder. A ballistics man from Ranger crime-lab
followed him to the stand and testified that it had been fired from
Longfellow's Colt. Then Ranger Captain Nelson took the stand. His
testimony was about what he had given me at the Embassy, with the
exception that the Bonneys' admission that th