g the importance of this court, we are willing to agree on
twelve."

It was so agreed. The jury took in every man in the little room but
three. "They'll do for a veniry," said Blackman, J. P., learnedly.
Under the circumstances, one can perhaps forgive him for becoming at
times a trifle mixed as to the legal proceedings.

At least, it was easy to agree as to the jury; for obviously the
population of the place was fully acquainted with all the facts in the
case, and each one had freely expressed his opinion upon the one side
or the other. There seemed to be no reason for excusing any juror for
cause; and upon the other hand, there are often very good reasons in a
Land Before the Law for not bringing up personal matters of this kind.
Indeed, the trial judge settled all that. He looked over the twelve
good men and true thus segregated, and remarked briefly: "They're his
peers, all right. The trile will now proceed."

Whereupon he swore them solemnly and made a record in his fee book, to
the later consternation of his jurors. "Ain't this court a notary,
too?" said Blackman later. "And ain't a notary entitled to so much fee
for administerin' a oath? And didn't I administer twelve oaths?"
There was small answer to this, after all. The laborer is worthy of
his hire; and Blackman really labored in this case as in all likelihood
few justices have before or since.

The prosecuting attorney, who, it may be seen, held his office much as
did the justice of the peace, by the doctrine of _nemine
contradicente_, now arose and made the opening statement. There, was
some doubt as to whether this was a civil or criminal trial, but there
was no doubt whatever of the existence of a trial of some kind; neither
did there exist any doubt as to the importance of this, the first case
the prosecuting attorney had ever tried, outside of moot courts. It
was the first speech he had ever made in public, barring college
"orations," carefully memorized, and an occasional Fourth of July
speech, which might have been better for more memorizing. The attorney
for the prosecution, however, arose to the occasion--at least to a
certain extent. He spoke in low and feeling tones of the struggling
little community of hardy souls thus set down apart in the far-off
mountain country of the West; of its trials, its hopes, its ambitions,
of its expectations of becoming a mountain emporium which should be the
pride of the entire Territory; he went on