, and in the counter
examinations of presiding judges like Pepperleigh that thrills you to
the core with the astuteness of it.

They had Henry Mullins, the manager, on the stand for an hour and a
half, and the excitement was so breathless that you could have heard a
pin drop. Nivens took him on first.

"What is your name?" he said.

"Henry August Mullins."

"What position do you hold?"

"I am manager of the Exchange Bank."

"When were you born?"

"December 30, 1869."

After that, Nivens stood looking quietly at Mullins. You could feel that
he was thinking pretty deeply before he shot the next question at him.

"Where did you go to school?"

Mullins answered straight off: "The high school down home," and Nivens
thought again for a while and then asked:

"How many boys were at the school?"

"About sixty."

"How many masters?"

"About three."

After that Nivens paused a long while and seemed to be digesting the
evidence, but at last an idea seemed to strike him and he said:

"I understand you were not on the bank premises last night. Where were
you?"

"Down the lake duck shooting."

You should have seen the excitement in the court when Mullins said this.
The judge leaned forward in his chair and broke in at once.

"Did you get any, Harry?" he asked.

"Yes," Mullins said, "about six."

"Where did you get them? What? In the wild rice marsh past the river?
You don't say so! Did you get them on the sit or how?"

All of these questions were fired off at the witness from the court in a
single breath. In fact, it was the knowledge that the first ducks of the
season had been seen in the Ossawippi marsh that led to the termination
of the proceedings before the afternoon was a quarter over. Mullins and
George Duff and half the witnesses were off with shotguns as soon as the
court was cleared.

I may as well state at once that the full story of the robbery of the
bank of Mariposa never came to the light. A number of arrests--mostly
of vagrants and suspicious characters--were made, but the guilt of the
robbery was never brought home to them. One man was arrested twenty
miles away, at the other end of Missinaba county, who not only
corresponded exactly with the description of the robber, but, in
addition to this, had a wooden leg. Vagrants with one leg are always
regarded with suspicion in places like Mariposa, and whenever a robbery
or a murder happens they are arrested in batches.

It was never eve