house.

This fact being established and impressed upon the jury, Mr. Orcutt with
admirable judgment cut short his own examination of the witness, and
passed him over to the District Attorney, with a grim smile, suggestive
of his late taunt, that to this gentleman belonged the special privilege
of weaving halters for the necks of unhappy criminals.

Mr. Ferris who understood his adversary's tactics only too well, but who
in his anxiety for the truth could not afford to let such an
opportunity for reaching it slip by, opened his cross-examination with
great vigor.

The result could not but be favorable to the defence and damaging to the
prosecution. The position which Mr. Hildreth must occupy if the prisoner
was acquitted, was patent to all understandings, making each and every
admission on his part tending to exculpate the latter, of a manifest
force and significance.

Mr. Ferris, however, was careful not to exceed his duty or press his
inquiries beyond due bounds. The man they were trying was not Gouverneur
Hildreth but Craik Mansell, and to press the witness too close, was to
urge him into admissions seemingly so damaging to himself as, in the
present state of affairs, to incur the risk of distracting attention
entirely from the prisoner.

Mr. Hildreth's examination being at an end, Mr. Orcutt proceeded with
his case, by furnishing proof calculated to fix the moment at which Mr.
Hildreth had made his call. This was done in much the same way as it was
at the inquest. Mrs. Clemmens' next-door neighbor, Mrs. Danton, was
summoned to the stand, and after her her two children, the testimony of
the three, taken with Mr. Hildreth's own acknowledgments, making it very
evident to all who listened that he could not have gone into Mrs.
Clemmens' house before a quarter to twelve.

The natural inference followed. Allowing the least possible time for his
interview with Mrs. Clemmens, the moment at which the witness swore to
having seen her alive and unhurt must have been as late as ten minutes
before noon.

Taking pains to impress this time upon the jury, Mr. Orcutt next
proceeded to fix the moment at which the prisoner arrived at Monteith
Quarry Station. As the fact of his having arrived in time to take the
afternoon train to Buffalo had been already proved by the prosecution,
it was manifestly necessary only to determine at what hour the train was
due, and whether it had come in on time.

The hour was ascertained, by dir