tand that he was with you in the cave?"

"No, Your Honour; I knew him before I went there."

"What is his name?"

"On the diggings, he is Bill the Prospector, but his real name is
William Wurcott."

"Call William Wurcott," said the Judge.

William Wurcott was duly cried, and the pioneer of Bush Robin Creek
pushed his way to the barrier and stood before the Court in all his
hairiness and shabbiness.

Tresco stood down, and the Prospector was placed in the box. After
being sworn according to ancient custom, Bill was asked all manner of
questions by counsel and the Judge, but no light whatever could he throw
on the murder of Isaac Zahn, though he deposed that if confronted with
the visitors to Tresco's cave, he would be able to identify them as
easily as he could his own mother. He further gave it as his opinion
that as the members of the gang, namely, Sweet William and his pals--he
distinctly used the words "pals" before the whole Court--had drugged him
and stolen his money, on the occasion to which Tresco had referred, they
were quite capable, he thought, of committing murder; and that since his
mate Tresco had seen them dividing stolen gold in his cave, on the day
of the thunderstorm, he fully believed that they, and not the prisoner
at the bar, were the real murderers.

All of which left the minds of the jury in such a confused state with
regard to the indictment against the prisoner, that, without retiring,
they returned a verdict of Not Guilty, and Jack left the Court in the
company of Rose, the Pilot, and Captain Sartoris.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The Way to Manage the Law.

It may have been that the Prospector's brief appearance in Court had
roused the public spirit latent in his hirsute breast, or it may have
been that his taciturnity had been cast aside in order that he might
assume his true position as a leader of men; however that may have been,
it is a fact that, on the morning after the trial, he was to be seen and
heard haranguing a crowd outside The Lucky Digger, and inciting his
hearers to commit a breach of the peace, to wit, the forcible liberation
of a prisoner charged with a serious crime.

"An' what did 'e come for?--'e come to see his pal had fair play," Bill
was exclaiming, as he stood on the threshold of the inn and faced the
crowd of diggers in the street. "'E proved the whole boilin' of 'em,
Judge, law-sharks, police, an' bum-bailies, was a pack of fools. He made
a reg'lar holy sh