ould not play with cogged dice, he was gambler enough
to take the honest chances of the game without flinching. No despair
rang in his voice. The look in his eye was still warm and confident.
Mesa questioned him with glimpses friendly but critical. They found no
fear in his bearing, no hint of doubt in his indomitable assurance.

CHAPTER 22. "NOT GUILTY"--"GUILTY"

Ridgway's answer to the latest move of Simon Harley was to put him on
trial for his life to answer the charge of having plotted and
instigated the death of Vance Edwards. Not without reason, the defense
had asked for a change of venue, alleging the impossibility of securing
a fair trial at Mesa. The courts had granted the request and removed
the case to Avalanche.

On the second day of the trial Aline sat beside her husband, a dainty
little figure of fear, shrinking from the observation focused upon her
from all sides. The sight of her forlorn sensitiveness so touched
Ridgway's heart that he telegraphed Virginia Balfour to come and help
support her through the ordeal.

Virginia came, and henceforth two women, both of them young and
unusually attractive, gave countenance to the man being tried for his
life. Not that he needed their support for himself, but for the effect
they might have on the jury. Harley had shrewdly guessed that the
white-faced child he had married, whose pathetic beauty was of so
haunting a type, and whose big eyes were so quick to reflect emotions,
would be a valuable asset to set against the black-clad widow of Vance
Edwards.

For its effect upon himself, so far as the trial was concerned, Simon
Harley cared not a whit. He needed no bolstering. The old wrecker
carried an iron face to the ordeal. His leathern heart was as foreign
to fear as to pity. The trial was an unpleasant bore to him, but
nothing worse. He had, of course, cast an anchor of caution to windward
by taking care to have the jury fixed. For even though his array of
lawyers was a formidably famous one, he was no such child as to trust
his case to a Western jury on its merits while the undercurrent of
popular opinion was setting so strongly against him. Nor had he
neglected to see that the court-room was packed with detectives to
safeguard him in the event that the sympathy of the attending miners
should at any time become demonstrative against him.

The most irritating feature of the trial to the defendant was the
presence of the little woman in black, whose burn