Blake would leave that gentleman unharmed and would come whirling
back upon Katherine as a boomerang of popular indignation. She dared
not breathe a word against the city's favourite until she had
incontrovertible proof. Under the circumstances, the best course
seemed for her to ask for a postponement on the morrow to enable her
to work up further evidence.

"Only," warned Hosie, "you must remember that the chances are that
Blake has already slipped the proper word to Judge Kellog, and
there'll be no postponement."

"Then I'll have to depend upon tangling up that Mr. Marcy on the
stand."

"And Doctor Sherman?"

"There'll be no chance of entangling him. He'll tell a straightforward
story. How could he tell any other? Don't you see how he's been
used?--been made spectator to a skilfully laid scheme which he
honestly believes to be a genuine case of bribery?"

At parting Old Hosie held her hand a moment.

"D'you remember the prophecy I made the day you took your office--that
you would raise the dickens in this old town?"

"Yes," said Katherine.

"Well, that's coming true--as sure as plug hats don't grow on fig
trees! Only not in the way I meant then. Not as a freak. But as a
lawyer."

"Thank you." She smiled and slowly shook her head. "But I'm afraid it
won't come true to-morrow."

"Of course a prophecy is no good, unless you do your best."

"Oh, I'm going to do my best," she assured him.

The next morning, on the long awaited day, Katherine set out for the
Court House, throbbing alternately with hope and fear of the outcome.
Mixed with these was a perturbation of a very different sort--an
ever-growing stage-fright. For this last there was good reason. Trials
were a form of recreation as popular in Calloway County as
gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome, and this trial--in the lack of
a sensational murder in the county during the year--was the greatest
of the twelvemonth. Moreover, it was given added interest by the fact
that, for the first time in recorded history, Calloway County was
going to see in action that weirdest product of whirling change, a
woman lawyer.

Hub to hub about the hitch-racks of the Square were jammed buggies,
surries, spring wagons and other country equipages. The court-room was
packed an hour before the trial, and in the corridor were craning,
straining, elbowing folk who had come too late. In the open
windows--the court-room was on the ground floor--were the busts of
eager cit