nted to very little, and probably had been
patched up before they reached their shack."

"That is a view which the jury evidently could not take."

"Juries are often wooden-headed."

"Of course--in the eyes of superior people."

"Now don't you try to be satirical--it's not your specialty. I mean to
finish the tale. If you read the paper, you will recall that the shanty
where the murder occurred was only a short distance from the
mountain-road, and there were three witnesses--Bill Metzger, a dissolute
cowboy who was passing, and who, attracted by Wofford's death-cry, ran
to the cabin and found Boyd, blood-stained knife in hand, bending over
the murdered man; Ed Thorpe, a tramp miner, who heard the same cry and
who came up two or three minutes later; and, finally, Tim Williams, a
town idler, who was on the mountain-side, hunting. The other two heard
him fire his gun a few hundred yards away, and called to him. When he
arrived, Boyd was still dazed and muttering to himself, as if
overpowered by the horror of his crime."

"If that isn't conclusive, then nothing is," said Harley, decisively.

"It is not conclusive; there was no real motive for Boyd to do such a
thing."

"To whom did the knife belong?"

"It was a long bread-knife that the two used at the cabin."

"There you are! Proof on proof!"

"Now, you keep silent, Harley, and come with me, like a good fellow, and
see Boyd in the jail. If you don't, I swear I'll pester the life out of
you for a week."

Harley rose reluctantly, as he knew that Hobart would keep his word. He
believed it the idlest of errands, but the jail was only a short
distance from them, and the business would not take long. On the way
Hobart talked to him about the three witnesses. Metzger, the cowboy, on
the day of the murder, had been riding in from a ranch farther down the
valley; the other two had been about the town until a short time before
the departure of Boyd and Wofford for their cabin.

They reached the jail, a conspicuous stone building in the centre of the
town, and were shown into the condemned man's cell. The jailer announced
them with the statement:

"Tim, here's two newspaper fellers from the East wants to see you."

The prisoner was lying on a pallet in the corner of his cell, and he
raised himself on his elbow when Harley and Hobart entered.

"You are writers for the papers?" he said.

"Yes, clean from New York; they are with Jimmy Grayson," the jailer
answered fo