The Texican

In sombre silence he listened day by day as the jail-lawyers – wise criminals who had been in the toils before – cooked up stories to explain away misdeeds; he watched day by day as the prisoners came down from their trial, some with bowed heads or cursing blindly, others laughing hysterically as they scuttled out the door; and many a man who had sworn to a lie went free where simple-minded sinners plead guilty and took their fate. Some there were who had boggled their stories because their dull minds could not compass the deceit; the district attorney had torn them to flinders, raging and threatening them with his finger for the perjured fools they were, and the judge had given them the limit for swearing to a lie. Even in jail it was the poor and lowly who were punished, while the jail-lawyers and those who could afford the petty dollar that hired them took shelter behind the law. Yes, it was all a game, and the best man won – if he held the cards.

Slowly and with painstaking care Pecos went over his own case, comparing it with these others, and his heart sank as he saw where the odds lay. The spotted calf was his – he could swear to it – but it bore the brand of Crittenden and he had lost his bill of sale. There were forty two-gun cowboys working for Crit and any one of them would swear him into jail for a drink – they had done it, so he knew. José Garcia was afraid to tell the truth and Crittenden would scare him worse than ever before the trial took place. Ah, that trial – it was more than five months off yet and he could not stir a foot! Once outside the bars and free-footed he could shake up the dust; he could rustle up his witnesses and his evidence and fight on an equality with Crit. But no, the munneypullistic classes had a bigger pull on him than ever, now – he was jailed in default of bail and no one would put up the price. God, what an injustice! A rich man – a man with a single friend who could put up a thousand dollars' bail —he could go free, to hire his lawyers, look up his witnesses, and fight his case in the open; but a poor man – he must lay his condemned carcass in jail and keep it there while the law went on its way. Day by day now the prisoners went to Yuma to serve their time, or passed out into the world. But were those who passed out innocent? The law said so, for it set them free. And yet they were white with the deadly pallor of the prison, their hands were weak from inactivity, and their minds poisoned by the vile company of yeggs; they had lain there in the heat all summer while judges went to the coast and grand jurymen harvested their hay, and after all their suffering, as a last and crowning flaunt, the law had declared them innocent! It had been many days since Pecos had seen the Voice of Reason and he had lost his first enthusiasm for the revolution, but nothing could make him think that this was right. The Law was like his kangaroo court, that travesty which he made more villainous in order to show his scorn; it laid hold upon the innocent and guilty and punished them alike. Only the sturdy fighters, like him, escaped – or the prisoners who had their dollar. That was it – money! And Pecos Dalhart had always been poor.

As the mills of the gods ground on, Pete Monat, with his bandaged head, and Mike Slattery, still nursing his battered jaw, were removed from the bridal chamber, tried, and lodged in the tanks for safety. Pete had hired a shyster lawyer and got ten years in Yuma; Mike had plead his own case and escaped with only three. It was this last lesson that Pecos conned in his heart. When Slattery the yegg was arrested he had feigned an overpowering drunkenness, and though the case was all against him – he had been caught in the act of burglarizing a lodging-house and was loaded down with loot – he had nevertheless framed up a good defence. With the artless innocence of the skilled "moocher" he explained to the court that while under the influence of no less than seven drinks of straight alcohol he had mistaken another gentleman's room for his own and had gathered up his wardrobe under the misapprehension that it was his own. At every attempt to prove his culpability he had represented that, beyond the main facts, his mind was a complete blank, at the same time giving such a witty description of the paralyzing effects of "Alki" that even the district attorney had laughed. According to Mike that was the way to get off easy, be polite and respectful-like to the judge and jury and jolly up the prosecuting attorney – and in this contention the unfortunate experience of Pete Monat clearly bore him out. Pete had made the fatal mistake of hiring, with two months' back pay, a "sucking lawyer" who had so antagonized the district attorney that that gentleman had become enraged, making such a red-hot speech against the damnable practice of horse-stealing – "a crime, gentlemen of the jury, which, because it may leave the innocent owner of that horse to die of thirst on the desert, ought by rights to be made a capital offence" – that poor Pete was found guilty and sentenced before he could build up a new defence.

"Oh, I don't hold nothin' agin you, Pardner," he replied, in answer to Pecos's solicitude for the influence of his battered head, "the jury didn't cinch me for my looks – it's that dam' narrer-headed jack-lawyer that I got to thank f'r this. He wouldn't let me tell my story, jest the way it was. You know, an' I know, that when a man gits his time on the range the boss is obligated to give him a mount to town. How's a cowboy goin' to git his riggin' to town – walk and pack his saddle? Well, now, jest because I give old Sage some back talk and quit him when he was short-handed he told me to walk; an' me, like the dam' fool I was, I went out and roped a hoss instead. Then, jest to git even, he had me arrested for a hoss-thief. But would this pin-head of a lawyer hear to a straight talk like that? No – he has me plead 'Not guilty' and swear I never took the hoss – an' you know the rest. That district attorney is a mean devil – he won't let nobody stand against him – you might as well plead 'Guilty' and take the mercy of the court as to try to buck against him. But whatever you do, Pardner, don't hire no tin-horn lawyer – I give ten years of my life to find that out." Pete sighed and rubbed his rough hands together wearily – it would be long before they felt the rope and the branding iron and the hard usage of honest toil. A great pity came over Pecos at the thought of his unhappy lot, and he treated him kindly before the other prisoners; but all the time a greater fear was clutching at his heart. Pete had taken a horse, but he had burned a calf – and Arizona hates a rustler worse than it hates a horse-thief. For all his strength and spirit, he was caught – caught like a rat in a trap – and as the imminence of his fate came over him he lost his leonine bearing and became furtive, like the rest of them. Outwardly he was the same, and he ruled the jail with a rod of iron, but at heart he was a true prisoner – cunning, cringing, watchful, dangerous – all his faculties centred upon that one thought, to escape!

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAW'S DELAY

AS the first hot days of summer came on, the district court of Geronimo County closed; the judge, having decided each case according to the law and the evidence, hurried upon his way, well satisfied; the deputies took a last disconsolate batch of prisoners to Yuma, and Pecos Dalhart sat down to ponder on his case. The tanks were nearly empty now, except for the drunks and vags that the constables brought in and the grist for the next grand jury. It was a dreary grist, each man swearing his innocence with unnatural warmth until the general cynicism of the place shamed him to silence. Pecos loathed them, the whining, browbeaten slaves. After he had sounded the depths of human depravity until there was no more wickedness to learn he drew more and more aloof from his companions, thinking his own thoughts in silence. When Boone Morgan came in, or the Blade reporter, he conversed with them, quietly and respectfully – Boone Morgan could speak a word to the judge, and Baker held the ear of the great public. They were very kind to Pecos now, and often, after some ingenious write-up of his exploits, crowds of visitors would come to stare at the grim rustler who ruled the Kangaroo Court. There were no signs of the social theorist about him now, and the revolution was a broken dream – he could not afford such dreams. Let the rich and the free hold fast to their convictions and their faith – he was trying to get out of jail.

The heat of midsummer came on apace, and the sun, beating against the outer walls, turned the close prison into an oven by day and a black hole of misery at night. The palpitating air seemed to press upon them, killing the thought of sleep, and the prisoners moaned and tossed in their bunks, or fell into fitful slumbers, broken by the high insistent whine of mosquitoes or the curses of the vags. Of curses there were a plenty before the cool weather came, and protests and complaints, but none from Pecos Dalhart. In the long watches of the night he possessed his soul of a mighty patience, to endure all things, if he could only go free. Even with a jail missionary, who distributed tracts and spoke bodingly of a great punishment to come, he was patient; and the missionary, poor simple man that he was, proffered him in return the consolation of religion. Being of a stiffnecked and perverse generation Pecos declined to confess his sins – the missionary might be subpœnaed by the prosecution – but he listened with long-suffering calm to the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, and the parable of the seeds that were sown on stony ground. In themselves the stories were good – nor were they strange to Pecos, for his mother had been a good Methodist – but the preacher spoiled them by a too pointed application of the moral to his own unfortunate case. Still, he let it go – anything was better than listening to the yeggs – and waited for the sermon to end. There was a favor that he wanted to ask. Many years ago – it was at camp-meeting and the shouters were dancing like mad – he had promised his sainted mother to read the Bible through if she would quit agonizing over his soul, but the promise he never kept. Small print was hard on his young eyes that were so quick to see a cow, and he put the matter off until such a time as he should break a leg or get sick or otherwise find time to spare. Well, he had all the time there was, now, and it would give him something to do.

"Say, Pardner," he observed, as the missionary pressed a sheaf of tracts upon him at parting, "is this the best you can do? I was powerful interested in them stories – how about a Bible?"

Bibles were a scarce article in those parts, but Pecos got one, and after laying bets with various flippant prisoners, he read it from cover to cover, religiously. Then, just to show his bringing up, he went back and read over all the big wars and fights and the troubles of Moses in the wilderness. Still there was time to spare and he read of Daniel and Nehemiah and the prophets who had cried unto Israel. It was a poor beginning, but somehow when he was reading the Bible he forgot the heat and the vileness of the jail and won back his self-respect. In that long catalogue of priests and prophets and leaders of the people what one was there, from Joseph to Jesus, who had not been cast into prison? The universality of their fate seemed to cheer him and give him something in common – perhaps they were of some kin with the apostles of the revolution. And in the long, suffocating nights he would think back to the mud-streaked adobe house that he had called home and hear his mother patting softly on her knees and singing: "Oh, come to Jesus, come to Jesus – " with a little Texas yupe at the end of every line. So he wore the summer's heat away, and with the return of cool weather his mind went back to his case.

There was no use trying to do anything before the grand jury, so everybody said; that great bulwark of the people generally indicted every one that the district attorney shook his finger at and let the judge find out later whether he was innocent – that was his business, anyway. Besides – whatever else he did – Pecos was going to be careful not to offend the district attorney. The sad case of Pete Monat, who must have put in an awful summer at Yuma, was ever in his mind, and while he would not go so far as to plead guilty in order to accommodate the choleric Mr. Kilkenny, he was firmly resolved not to antagonize him in the trial. He had money, too – five months' wages, deposited with the sheriff – but a hundred and fifty dollars would not hire a man who could stand up against District Attorney Kilkenny, the terror of evil-doers. As a man, Shepherd Kilkenny was all right – a devoted husband, a loving father, all the other good things you read on a gravestone – but as a prosecuting attorney he was a devil. At every biennial election he got all the votes there were on his court record. He convicted everybody – except a few whose friends had worked a rabbit's foot for them – and convicted them beyond appeal. That saved money to the county. His reputation for convictions was so great that most of the petty criminals pled guilty and came down like Davey Crockett's coon, before he had a chance to shoot. That expedited the court calendar and saved thousands of dollars in fees and witness expenses – another good thing for the honest tax-payer. In fact, everything that Shepherd Kilkenny did was for the benefit of the Geronimo tax-payers, and Yuma was crowded with convicts to prove that he knew his business. That was what he was hired for – to convict law-breakers – and if he let a single guilty man escape he was recreant to his trust. Kilkenny had a stern sense of civic responsibility – he got them, if it took a leg.

There had been a time when Shepherd Kilkenny believed that every man who had the price was innocent. That was when, as a rising young lawyer, he was defending criminals in the courts; and he threw so many miscreants loose and made such a show of old Trusdale, the former district attorney, that the community in a burst of popular indignation put the old man out and gave Kilkenny his job. At this Kilkenny brought out an entirely new set of adjectives, changed all his fixed opinions in a day, and, being now in a position to square himself with the real Law, which holds that a man is guilty until he can prove himself innocent, he became a flaming sword against the transgressor. His conversion also enabled him to slough off the old pathetic-fallacy line of talk that he had been called upon to use in pleading before a jury and to adopt a more dignified and denunciatory style, a cross between Demosthenes and the Daniel Webster school. The prosperous life of a politician jollied him up a bit, too; he developed a certain sardonic humor in the handling of unfavorable witnesses, and got off a good one every once in a while for the benefit of the reporters. But there was one thing that Shepherd Kilkenny could not tolerate, and that was another rising young criminal lawyer trying to defeat the ends of justice and beat him out of his job. Yuma was full of Pete Monats who had fallen victims to this feud, and Pecos resolved to plead his case himself before he would take chances on a sucking lawyer.

It was while he was in this vacillating mood and feeling mighty lonely and lost to the world that he heard late one night a familiar whoop from the jag-cell, followed by a fiery oration in the vernacular. It was Angy, down for his periodical drunk, and Pecos could hardly wait to clasp him by the hand. It was a peculiar thing about Angevine Thorne – the drunker he got the more his language improved, until in the ecstasy of his intoxication, he often quoted Greek and Latin, or words deemed by local wiseacres to be derived from those sources. Drink also seemed to clarify his vision and give him an exalted sense of truth, justice, and man's inhumanity to man. It had been his custom in the past at this climacteric stage of inebriation to mount upon some billiard table or other frangible piece of saloon furniture and deliver temperance lectures until removed by the police. But times had changed with Geronimo's champion booze-fighter and in his later prepossessions he grappled with the mighty problem of wealth and its relation to the common man. There are some hard sayings in the Voice of Reason against the privileged classes, but they are all nicely considered in relation to the libel law, whereas Angy had no such compunctions. Having spent all his money for drink and received a jail sentence for life, the law had no further terrors for him and he turned his eloquence loose. It was a wild rave when Pecos heard it, and grew progressively more incoherent; but as he lay in his bunk and listened to the familiar appeals a thought came to Pecos like an inspiration from the gods – why not turn that stream of eloquence into profitable channels and make Angy his advocate? There was not a voter in Geronimo who did not know Babe Thorne and love him for his foolishness – the life sentence which he suffered for conspicuous drunkenness was but a token of their regard, placing him above the level of common ordinary drunks even as his eloquence placed him above the maudlin orators with whom the saloons were crowded. He was a character, a standing jest – and Arizona loves a joke better than life itself. Above all, Angy was a good fellow – he could jolly the district attorney and make him laugh! They would win their case and then he would be free – free! Pecos could not sleep from thinking of it and he begged Bill Todhunter, as a special favor, to bring Babe in from the jag-cell at once.

"What's the matter?" inquired Bill casually, "are you gettin' interested in yore girl? I hear Old Crit has cut you out."

"Crit be damned!" cried Pecos. "Have I ever asked you for anything before? Well then, throw him in here, can't you?"

The deputy did as he was bid and went away – he was not of a prying disposition and Pecos had saved him a lot of trouble. There had never been an alcalde like Pecos Dalhart. No, indeed – it would rustle them to get one half as good when he went his way to Yuma.

The conference with Angevine Thorne, attorney-at-law, was long, and private, but as Angy sobered up he beheld greater and greater possibilities in the matter; and when he went away he assured his client that within the calendar month he should step forth a free man – free as the prairie wind. He was confident of it, and upon his departure Pecos gave him fifty dollars to use with José Garcia. Also he was to find Old Funny-face, the mother of the calf, if it took the last cow in the barn. But all was to be conducted quietly, very quietly, for if Old Crit ever got wind of any defence he would frame up a case to disprove it. To be sure, José Garcia was in debt several hundred dollars to Isaac Crittenden – and afraid of his life, to boot – but for fifty dollars cash Joe would swear to anything, even the truth; and if by so doing he got Pecos out – why, there was a man who could protect him against Crit and all his cowboys. It looked good to Angevine Thorne and, as an especial inducement to Joe to stay put, he swore by all the saints to have his life if he dared to go back on his agreement. Then, very quietly, he instituted a search for Old Funny-face and, having located her up the river with a tame bunch of cattle, he came away, knowing full well that he could produce her at the proper time. There would be a little surprise coming to Isaac Crittenden when he went to court next week and, being actuated by no feeling of false delicacy in dealing with such a reptile, Angy went back to work for him and watched the conspiracy breed.

It was a constant source of surprise to the transient public to observe how a man with so many disagreeable qualities kept the same men working for him year after year; but to those who knew Crittenden well it was as natural as hunger and thirst. In fact, it was intimately connected with hunger and thirst. Any time that Joe Garcia wanted to quit he could just tell his wife and six children to stop eating, tie his things in a handkerchief, and walk down the road. José was ruled by hunger and the slavish peon spirit of a Mexican – Babe and the cowboys were ruled by thirst. No matter how many times he had been fired or quit, a man could always get a chance to work for nothing with Crit; and so long as he spent all his money at the store Crittenden was even willing to pay him good wages in the busy season. Babe was the easiest mark he had as far as money was concerned, and, being so well educated withal, the illiterate cowman found him almost indispensable as a letter-writer and book-keeper. So far, so good – but why did Babe, with his classical education, insist upon donating his services to a man who treated him so despitefully? Ah, it was a hard question, but even a vagrant likes to have some place, no matter how unlovely, which can take the place of a home. Yet for the six long months that Pecos had lain in jail Angy had had reason enough for staying – Marcelina needed him, and she needed him bad.

Every month seemed to add some new grace and beauty to the daughter of José Garcia – the primitive beauty that seems to bud like a flower beneath the Arizona sun; the beauty of the young Apache maiden and the slender Hija de Mejico, that comes to its perfection so soon and is doomed so often to fade away prematurely before the lust of men. In another place Marcelina's face might have been her fortune, but at Verde Crossing it was her bane. The cowboys lingered about the store to gaze upon her boldly or stepped outside to intercept her on her way; and Joe, poor tortoise-brained Joe, did not live up to his full duty as a father. The Texano cowboys were a fierce breed and impatient of restraint – also they held a Mexican to be something below a snake. He was afraid of them, though he rolled his fat eyes and frowned – but most of all he feared Old Crit. Ah, there was a man to fear – Ol' Creet – and he held him in his power, him and all his little flock. Day after day, as the summer passed, the Boss kept after him, and but for his woman he would have given way. How she did curse him, the Señora, his mujer, and how she did curse Crit – but most of all she cursed their poverty, which exposed her child to such a fate. Even the few pesos to send her to the school were lacking – Marcelina must stay at Verde Crossing and fight against her fate. There was only one man who would stand by them, and that was Babe. Only for the one time in six months had Babe been drunk, and that was when Crit was away. He had left them his pistols at parting and hurried back, after he had seen Pecos in the jail. Yet after all it was worth the risk, for Babe had brought back money – yes, money, fifty dollars in bills – and he offered it all to José if he would stand up and tell the truth. What a coward – that foolish José! For a week he weighed his manhood in the balance and was afraid – and then Babe had given him two drinks, quick, and made him promise, and given the money to his mujer. Madre de Dios, it was accomplished, and the day that Crittenden and his cowboys rode away to Geronimo to testify before the grand jury the Señora Garcia followed far behind in the broken-down buggy, and when the town was dark she drove in and left Marcelina at the Sisters' school.

CHAPTER XIX

THE LAST CHANCE

THERE was a hot time in old Geronimo on the night that Ike Crittenden and his cowboys rode in, and in spite of everything he could do three of them wound up in the jag-cell before morning. Nevertheless he had plenty of witnesses and to spare, for the grand jury merely went over the same evidence that had been taken before the magistrate and handed down an indictment against Pecos Dalhart, accusing him of feloniously and unlawfully marking, branding, or altering the brand on one neat animal, to wit, a spotted calf, belonging to Isaac Crittenden of Verde Crossing. It was almost the first case on the calendar and the arraignment was set for the following Monday. Then Pecos Dalhart, defendant, slouched gloomily back to his cell and sat down to await the issue. The howls of Angevine Thorne, blended with the hoarse protests of Crit's cowboys, floated in to him from the jag-cell and he knew his faithful attorney had not deserted him, but what a broken reed was that to lean on when his whole future hung in the balance! Even as he listened he had an uneasy fear that Angy was giving the whole snap away to the drunken cowboys and once more he begged Bill Todhunter to throw Babe into the tanks where he could look after him. It was at this time, when things were at their worst, that Shepherd Kilkenny, the district attorney, came down to look into his case and find out how he would plead.

He was a very cautious man, Mr. Kilkenny, and he never had a man indicted unless he held his written confession or knew beyond the peradventure of a doubt that he could convict him. In the case of Pecos Dalhart he had been unusually careful, for it was the first case of cattle stealing to come before him and most of his constituents were in the cow business; therefore, not to take any chances, he had followed it from the magistrate's court to the secret chambers of the grand jury, and now he was going after a confession. He came with gifts, a brace of cigars, but Pecos was well supplied with cigarette makings and waved them courteously aside. Then they got down to business.

"Mr. Dalhart," began Kilkenny, "I'm the district attorney and I've come to talk over your case with you – in a friendly way, you understand. Ah – have you engaged an attorney? No? Well, that is hardly necessary, you know, but if you do call in a counsellor I am sure he will advise you to plead 'Guilty.' Ahem – yes, indeed. There's many a man stole his calf and got away with it, but you were caught in the act and observed by twenty witnesses. Not the ghost of a chance, you see; but if you plead 'Guilty' and throw yourself upon the mercy of the court it will cut your sentence in half, probably more. I'm a friend of yours, Mr. Dalhart, and I've often heard the sheriff speak of your exemplary character as a prisoner. All these things are appreciated, you know, and I – well, I'll do all I can for you with the judge. Now all you have to do is to sign this little paper and – "

"I'm sorry," said Pecos, thrusting the paper back, "and I sure take it kindly of you, Mr. Kilkenny, but I can't plead 'Guilty' – not to please nobody – because I'm not guilty."

"Not guilty!" The district attorney laughed. "Why, you were taken in the act, Mr. Dalhart. I never saw a more conclusive line of evidence."

"Well," grumbled Pecos, "if I was guilty I'd sure plead 'Guilty,' you can bank on that. But this blankety-blank, Ike Crittenden, has jest framed up a lot of evidence to railroad me to the pen – and them cowboys of his would swear to anything for the drinks. You wouldn't soak a man on evidence like that, would you, Mr. District Attorney?"

"I'd soak him on any evidence I could get," responded the district attorney succinctly. "You know my reputation, Mr. Dalhart – I convict every man that pleads 'Not guilty'!"

"But s'pose he isn't guilty!" cried Pecos.

"I convict him anyway!" replied the district attorney. "Are you going to sign this, or are you going ahead like a damned fool and get the limit in Yuma?"

"I won't sign it," said Pecos firmly.

"Very well," responded Kilkenny, closing his little book with a snap. He rose to his full height and pursed his lips ominously. "Very well, Mr. Dalhart!" he said, nodding and blinking his eyes. "Very well, sir!" Then he retired, leaving so much unsaid that it threw Pecos into a panic. In a very real picture he could see himself sitting in the shade of a big adobe wall and making State's-prison bridles for life. He could see the guards pacing back and forth on top of the bastions and Pete Monat holding one end of a horse-hair strand while he swung a little trotter and twisted the loose hairs into the other end, forever and forever. It was awful. The full sense of his impending doom rushed in upon him and he laid hold of the sodden Babe who was maundering about the revolution, and shook him frantically.

"My God, Angy," he cried, "wake up and do something! Fergit about the common people and do something for me! Fergit that you ever had any principles and he'p me fight that low-lived dastard or I'll go to Yuma for life!"

"The voice of the people shall rule in the land!" pronounced Angy oracularly.

"To hell with the people!" yelled Pecos. "It's the People that's tryin' to send me up! Do you want me to git twelve years for brandin' that spotted calf? Well, wake up, then, and git yore wits to work!"

Angy woke up, by degrees, but his wits would not work. The ecstasy of intoxication was past and his mind was a legal blank for the remainder of that day. The day was Friday, and Pecos had to plead on Monday – "Guilty" or "Not guilty." "Guilty" meant six or eight years in prison; "Not guilty" meant twelve years – or freedom. It was a gamble, but he would risk it if Angy would remain sober enough to talk. His only chance of freedom lay in his friend's misdirected eloquence, and when Babe was entirely himself Pecos backed him up into a corner and talked to him with tears in his voice.

"Never, never, never – " began Angy, holding up his hand to swear; but Pecos stopped him with a sign.

"Nothing like that, Pardner," he said. "You been breakin' that pledge for forty years. Jest look me in the eye now and promise me you won't tech a drop until I'm free."

"All right, Pecos," agreed Angy, "I'll do it, I won't touch a drop till you're free."

"And when I'm free," continued Pecos, "I'll stake you to a drunk from which Geronimo will sure date time. Now let's git down to business."

The details of that campaign against the People were talked over in hushed secrecy and when on Monday morning Pecos appeared before the stern judge to plead, Angevine Thorne stood just within the rail, shuffling his worn hat nervously.

"I will call the case of the People versus Pecos Dalhart," said the judge. "Pecos Dalhart, to the charge of grand larceny do you plead 'Guilty' or 'Not guilty'?"

"'Not guilty,' Your Honor!" responded Pecos.

"The defendant enters a plea of 'Not guilty,'" observed the judge impassively. "Are you represented by counsel, Mr. Dalhart?"

"No, Your Honor," replied Pecos.

"You understand, do you not, that in case you are unable to employ an attorney the court will appoint one to advise you, free of charge?"

"Yes, Your Honor," answered Pecos, "but if it's all the same to you I'd rather not have a lawyer. I'd like to ask a favor, Judge, if you don't mind. The reason I don't want an attorney appointed is that I know very well none of these lawyers around here can stand up to the district attorney when it comes to a case of law" – here Kilkenny smiled grimly to himself and glanced at Mr. Baker of the Blade– "but at the same time, Judge, I do want some one to speak for me, and I'm goin' to ask you to appoint my friend Mr. Thorne, back there, as my counsellor."

"Mr. Thorne?" inquired the judge, and as Angy stepped forward, smirking and bowing, a slight smile broke up the fine legal lines on the judicial brows. At no time was Angy over-fastidious about his attire, and a night in jail, particularly in the jag-cell, is warranted to spoil the appearance of the finest suit of clothes that was ever made. Angy's clothes were old and worn; his shirt was greasy around the neck, and his overalls, hanging loosely about his hips, piled up in slovenly rolls above his shoe-tops; his hat, from much fanning of open fires, was grimed with ashes and whitened with splashes of sour dough, and his shiny bald head and red face told all too plainly the story of his past. In the titter that followed his announcement he stood silent, rolling his bloodshot eyes upon the audience, but as the grinning bailiff smote the table for order he turned with the dignity of an orator and addressed the judge.

"Your Honor," he said, beginning the set speech which he had prepared, "I am not unaware that this request on the part of the defendant is a little irregular, but if the court please I should like to state the reasons – "

"Just a moment!" cut in the district attorney brusquely. "Your Honor, I object to this man being appointed to the position of counsellor on the ground that he is not a duly-licensed attorney and therefore not competent to practise in this court."