for a time, he stepped forward. An instant later a
little fellow half his size also marched to the front. There were two
Tom Tracys among the arrested men! Neither of them knew the other! Tracy
then gave his correct name and both he and "Little Tom Tracy" were later
held among the seventy-four charged with murder in the first degree.

During all the time the free speech fighters were awaiting trial the
lumber trust exerted its potent influence at the national capital to the
end of preventing any congressional investigation of the tragedy of
November 5th and the circumstances surrounding it. The petitions of
thousands of citizens of the state of Washington were ignored. All too
well the employers knew what a putrid state of affairs would be
uncovered were the lumber trust methods exposed to the pitiless light of
publicity. That the trial itself would force them into the open
evidently did not enter into their calculations.

In changing the information charging the murder of C. O. Curtis to the
charge of murdering Jefferson Beard the prosecution thought to cover one
point beyond the possibility of discovery, which change seems to have
been made as a result of the exhuming of the body of C. O. Curtis in
February. Curtis had been buried in a block of solid concrete and this
had to be broken apart in order to remove the body. Just who performed
the autopsy cannot be ascertained as the work was covered in the very
comprehensive bill of $50.50 for "Exhuming the body of C. O. Curtis, and
autopsy thereon," this bill being made out in the name of the
superintendent of the graveyard and was allowed and paid by Snohomish
County. This, together with the fact that at no time during the trial
did the prosecution speak of C. O. Curtis as having met his death at the
hands of the men on the Verona, seems to bear out the contention of the
defense that Curtis was the victim of the rifle fire of one of his
associates.

So on March 5th, after holding the free speech prisoners for four months
to the day, the lumber trust, in the name of the State of Washington,
brought the first of them, Thomas H. Tracy, to trial, on a charge of
first degree murder, in the King County Court House at Seattle,
Washington.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PROSECUTION

The King County Court House is an imposing, five story, white structure,
covering an entire block in the business section of the city of Seattle.
Its offices for the conduct of the county and city