Part 12 (1/2)

The judge settled back in his easy chair; the twelve jurymen at his left idly watched the crowd pour into the little courtroom. By the time the prisoner had been escorted in by the sheriff, every inch of s.p.a.ce was occupied by eager spectators, both men and women; for the case of Andy Morrow, locally known as ”Stutterin' Andy,” charged by the grand jury with stealing one red yearling branded X V from Joseph Barker, had attracted the attention of the entire community.

During the morning session, the prosecution had given their side of the case. Old man Barker and a detective from Denver had each testified to finding the hide of a yearling bearing Barker's well-known brand, buried beneath a pile of brush on Morrow's ”dry farm” claim.

The resurrected hide was also placed before the jury, the X V on the left ribs being plainly visible and when court adjourned for the noon recess, Barker was jubilant.

”We'll git him, we'll git him,” he said to his foreman as they tramped down the narrow staircase leading from the courtroom. ”I'll make a s.h.i.+nin' example of Mister Stutterin' Andy, what'll put the fear o' G.o.d into a lot of them cow thieves, an' last this here community for some time.”

”I reckin' so,” replied the foreman who felt that the reputation of the X V outfit was at stake. After lunch, court having been duly opened, the young lawyer, who owing to Morrow's poverty, had been appointed by the court to defend him, addressed the jury with a short statement of the case.

The poverty of the prisoner, his struggles to make a home, the iniquitous ”fence law” which forced the little farmer to fence his crops against the wandering herds of the cattlemen, the wealth and standing of Barker, the complaining witness, and his use of a hired detective to hunt up evidence, was all pictured to the jury in his strongest language.

”Say, Barker,” whispered a man at his side, nudging him with the point of his elbow, ”don't you feel sort of ornery like, to be made out such a consarned old renegade?”

”Don't you be a-feelin' sorry for me,” he snapped back, ”them what laughs last laughs best, an' I reckon' we got a big ole laugh a-comin'

when this here performance is concluded.”

”I swear,” muttered a man in the audience to his neighbor, ”ef that there lawyer chap hopes to make anything out of Andy's testimony that will help him, I miss my guess. Why the pore devil stutters so that n.o.body kin git a word outa him scarcely, when there's nothin' excitin'

goin' on, let alone with all these here people a-settin' there a-listenin'. I'm a-bettin' he won't be able to tell his own name to say nothin' about explainin' how he didn't kill that there yearlin'.”

But the attorney knew his business and Morrow remained quietly in his seat beside the sheriff. Having finished his preliminary statement, the young lawyer whispered to the bailiff, who walked across to a small jury room opening off the main courtroom, and opened a door.

A low-spoken word, and there stepped from the room a woman--the wife of the prisoner.

She was tall, slim and about twenty-five years of age. From the corner of her mouth protruded the ”dip-stick,” that ever present solace of the s.e.x among her cla.s.s, and without which she probably never could have faced the crowd.

A faded blue calico dress over which she wore a small shawl, and on her head a bedraggled hat with a few tousled roses stuck on one side, made up a costume which only accentuated her drawn face and sorrowful eyes.

After a few moments of whispered conversation with the lawyer, she took the witness chair.

At first her answers to his questions as to her name, age, etc., were given in a low, scarcely audible voice, and the room was so still it was fairly oppressive.

”You understand, do you,” he asked her, ”that your husband is charged with killing a yearling belonging to Mr. Barker?”

”I sh.o.r.e do,” was the reply.

”Will you, please, tell the jury in your own words, just what you know about this matter,” the lawyer said.

”Mought I tell it jist as I want to, jist as I done tole it to you down to the hotel?” she asked.

”Yes,” he replied very kindly, ”tell the jury your story just as you told it to me.”

She carefully removed the ”dip stick” from her mouth, placing it in a little wooden box which she carried in a battered leather hand bag.

Then, turning to the jury, she began her story in a clear firm voice, as if she realized that upon her testimony hung the fate of her husband.

”I want to tell you-all men, the truth about this here thing,” she said looking into their faces with unflinching eye, ”jist how it happened, an' don't mean to hide narry part of it from n.o.body.

”Andy an' me's been married now nigh onto six year. We moved into this country about a year ago, comin' from Arkin-saw in a wagon. We had two chillen, a boy an' a gal.

”When we gits here, Andy located down there on the claim an' tried dry farmin'; 'kaffir korners' I reckin' some of them calls us. It tuck mighty nigh every cent we had to git the seed an' some farmin' tools, an' after the c.r.a.p were in, Andy he gits work in a sawmill up into the mountings, leavin' me an' the kids to make the c.r.a.p.

”Andy he done built a little loghouse an' a corral, an' puts a brush fence around the land we broke up to keep the critters out, we not havin' any money fer to buy barbed wire fer the fence.