' tree!"

"How was MacDonald standing?"

"He waz standin' with his back t' her, with his hand hangin' kind o'
loose from th' hoist waitin' for 'em t' ring th' bell t' let her down
t' next level!"

There was a long silence. Eleanor had turned very white. The eyes of
the news editor emitted sparks.

"I expected that," commented Wayland.

"Y' d', did y'?" rumbled Matthews. "Then A 'll wager y 'll nut be
expectin' what A 'll spring!"

The room suddenly filled with a rustling and whispering. Men were
demonstrating exactly how it had happened. The handy man's tallow
smile melted on his face; and the tortoise shell eyes looked sidewise
at Wayland. The look wasn't malicious; and it wasn't triumphant. It
was the look of a gambler saying, "Come on my four-flusher, beat that!
Show down!" The rabble outside deployed off the pavement across the
street back a whole block. Eleanor could hear the hum through the open
window.

The attorney was leaning across the table conferring with the coroner.

The coroner rapped the table and cried for "order."

The room suddenly silenced.

"Gentlemen, as this evidence will have to be handed in to the district
attorney for what action he deems best, I wish to ask one more
question. Mr. Sheriff, you know this Valley and the people in it well?"

"I do, known it for twenty years."

"Do you know of any reason why this woman Calamity would have shot or
wished to shoot, her employer, MacDonald?"

The Sheriff changed a quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other.

Eleanor leaned forward looking straight in his eyes. Bat was eyeing
Eleanor quizzically. (Had he constructed the evidence so skilfully
that he had come to believe it himself?) Matthews was almost tearing
the arms out of the chair where he sat.

"Well," said Sheriff Flood clasping his hands in rest across his portly
person. "I guess squaw is same as any other woman in _one_ respect. I
guess she had same reason for shootin' MacDonal' as any other woman in
her place would o' had," and he looked up well pleased with himself at
the roomful. For a moment, there was deadly heavy silence; then the
hum of the crowd on the steps pouring the word out to those in the
street.

"Ye lyin' scut[1]! Ye filthy cess pool o' dirt an' falsehood!"

The old frontiersman had sprung from his place and smashed his chair in
twenty atoms on the table between the sheriff and the coroner.

"Y'll not offend the deceased gentleman's memor