had again faced the front, he had
rearranged his disturbed locks.

After this slight interruption, Bobby again relapsed into day-dreaming.
He fell once more to visualizing the scene of that day. Gradually the
court-room faded away. He saw the hillside, the burnt logs on the bare
ground, the popples silvery in the sun, the sky blue above the hill. The
patch of brown by the rustling scrub oak glimmered before his eyes. He
saw again the exact angle it lay above him. For the hundredth time he
looked over the sights of the rifle, fair against that spot of brown. "I
must have over-shot a foot," he sighed, "or it would have taken him
square."

And then as he stared over the sights, his finger on the trigger, the
imaginary scene faded, the familiar court-room came out of the mists to
take its place. Slowly the brown spot at which he aimed dissolved, a
man's head took its place; the oily-haired witness for the prosecution
happened now to occupy exactly the position relative to Bobby's attitude
as had Mr. Kincaid's cap the day of the murder. And through the slightly
disarranged long hair, and exactly in line with the imaginary rifle
sights Bobby could just make out a dull red furrow running along the
scalp. At this instant, as though uneasy at a scrutiny instinctively
felt, the man reached back to smooth his locks. The scar at once
disappeared.

XXV

THE HOLE IN THE CAP

For perhaps ten seconds Bobby sat absolutely motionless while a new
thought was born. Then, oblivious of surroundings or of the exasperated
objections of those near him, he clambered over the rail and wriggled
his way to the open aisle. Several tried to seize him, but he managed in
some manner to elude them all. Once in the open he darted forward toward
the astonished officials. His freckled face was very red, his stubby
hair towsled, his gray eyes earnest. The sheriff rose from his seat as
though to stop him.

"I want to see that cap!" cried Bobby to the blur in general. He caught
sight of it, ran to seize it, looked at it closely, and threw it down
with a little cry of triumph. The bullet holes were not both at the top:
one perforation was high up; but the other, on the left hand side, was
situated low, near the edge. Bobby knew that the man who had worn that
cap must have been hit.

The judge's gavel was in the air, the sheriff on his feet, a hundred
mouths open to expostulate against this interruption of a grave
occasion.

"Mr. Kincaid did