rock title.

At noon when he returned to the court room they were in the trial of the
Saylor case. On the right sat Squire Putman and his client and behind
them, Mrs. Saylor, Mary and Susie.

Saylor and his counsel had an air of easy confidence; Mrs. Saylor the
set face and look of an unhappy fatalist; Mary's expression was one of
worried interest and sadness; Susie suppressed an occasional sob.

To Cornwall the jury seemed a rather unsatisfactory one, they looked
bored and unsympathetic. The panel was made up of business men of
Pineville and Middlesboro, who resented being kept from their
occupations at a busy season. They were new citizens who had moved into
the mountains since the development of the coal fields and had little
use or sympathy for pistol toters or feudists.

There was one exception, Elhannon Howard, Saylor's neighbor. He sat in a
listless and inattentive attitude, probably thinking of his patch of
hillside corn or the Southdown ram.

Summing up the situation, realizing how kindly and informally he had
been received into and entertained in the Saylor home, Cornwall
regretted that when refusing the fee of $25.00 he had not volunteered
his services in the defense. He would have done so at the time, but
supposed that Mr. Saylor would employ competent counsel to defend him.

The trial was a short one. The Commonwealth, in addition to making out
its technical case, proved threats on the part of Saylor and that Saylor
admitted the killing.

Saylor on the stand told the same story he had told Cornwall. The
defense then introduced two witnesses, who swore that the deceased had
threatened Saylor; Spencer sending word by them to Saylor that he
intended to kill him; the squire attempted to show by the doctor that
when Spencer was told by him that he could live but an hour or two, the
dying man had said: "I am to blame for the trouble," but the court
excluded the declaration from the jury.

The squire in making his argument for the defense grew quite stentorian
of voice and excited in manner. He had a way of half stooping until the
long coat tails of his black frock coat touched the floor, when he would
suddenly spring upright and exclaim: "Now, gentlemen of the jury,
wouldn't you be danged fools if putting yourselves in Saylor's place you
had not done as he did."

In one of these paroxysms his coat tail flapped to one side and hung
pendant on the handle of a six-shooter protruding from his hip pocket.
T