The Texican

All the other witnesses had been relegated to the jury-room, where they would be beyond the sound of the court, but being the complaining witness Isaac Crittenden was entitled to remain and he sat just behind the district attorney, fumbling with the high collar that galled his scrawny neck and rolling his evil eye upon the assemblage. As he rose up from his place and mounted the witness stand a rumble of comment passed through the hall and the sheriff struck his gavel sharply for order.

"Swear the witness, Mr. Clerk," directed the judge, and raising his right hand in the air Isaac Crittenden rose and faced the court, looking a trifle anxious and apprehensive, as befits one who is about to swear to a lie. Also, not being used to actions in court, he entertained certain illusions as to the sanctity of an oath, illusions which were, however, speedily banished by the professional disrespect of the clerk. Reaching down under the table for a penholder which he had dropped and holding one hand weakly above his head he recited with parrot-like rapidity the wearisome formula of the oath: – "Do you solemnly swear that the evidence you are about to give in the case of the People versus Pecos Dalhart shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, s'elpyougod?"

Crittenden blinked his good eye and sat down. There was nothing very impressive about the proceeding, but all the same he was liable for perjury.

"Calling your attention to the eighth day of May, of the present year, where were you on that day, Mr. Crittenden?" It was the first gun in the real engagement and the surging crowd about the doors quit scrouging for a view and poised their heads to listen. The voice of the district attorney was very quiet and reassuring, and Isaac Crittenden, taking his cue, answered with the glib readiness of a previous understanding.

"I was gathering cattle with my cowboys near my ranch at Verde Crossing."

"And upon returning to your home did you encounter any one in the deep arroyo which lies above your ranch?"

"Yes, sir," responded Crittenden, "I come across Pecos Dalhart."

"Is this the gentleman to whom you refer?" inquired Kilkenny, pointing an accusing thumb toward Pecos. "Very good, then – you identify the defendant. Now, Mr. Crittenden, what was the defendant doing at that time?"

"He had a spotted calf of mine strung out by a little fire and was alterin' the brand with a runnin' iron." Old Crit's eye wandered instinctively to Pecos Dalhart as he spoke and gleamed with a hidden fire, but his face was as expressionless as a death mask.

"I offer the following animal in evidence," said the district attorney, beckoning toward the side door. "Bring in the exhibit!" And as Bill Todhunter appeared, sheepishly leading the spotted calf, which had been boarded all summer in town, he threw out his hand dramatically and hissed:

"Do you identify this animal? Is that the calf?"

"I do!" responded Crit. "It is the same animal!"

"That's all!" announced Kilkenny, and with a grin of triumph he summoned the hawk-eyed jurymen to inspect the brand. There it was, written on the spotted side of the calf, in ineffaceable lines – the plain record of Pecos Dalhart's crime, burned with his own hands. Across the older scar of Isaac Crittenden's brand there ran a fresh-burnt bar, and below the barred Spectacle was a Monkey-wrench, seared in the tender hide. To a health-seeker or a mining man the significance of those marks might be hidden, but the twelve cowmen on the jury read it like a book. Only one thing gave them a passing uneasiness – Crit's Spectacle brand was very evidently devised to burn over Pecos Dalhart's Monkey-wrench, but that was beside the point. They were there to decide whether Pecos Dalhart had stolen that particular spotted calf, and the markings said that he did. By that broad bar which ran through the pair of Spectacles he deprived Isaac Crittenden of its ownership, and by the Monkey-wrench burned below he took it for his own. All right then, – they retired to their seats and Angevine Thorne took the witness.

They faced each other for a minute – the man who had committed a crime and covered it, and the man who had sworn to expose his guilt – and began their fencing warily.

"Mr. Crittenden," purred Angy, "you are in the cattle business, are you not? Yes, indeed; and about how many cattle have you running on your range?"

"I don't know!" answered Crittenden gruffly.

"At the last time you paid your taxes you were assessed for about ten thousand, were you not? Quite correct; I have the statement of the assessor here to verify it. Now, Mr. Crittenden, kindly tell the jury what per cent of those cattle are calves?"

"I don't know," replied Crit.

"No?" said Angy, with assumed surprise. "Well then, I hope the court will excuse me for presuming to tell a cowman about cows but the percentage of calves on an ordinary range is between fifty and sixty per cent. So, according to that you have on your range between five and six thousand calves, have you not? Very good. And now, Mr. Crittenden, speaking roughly, about how many of your cattle are solid color?"

"I don't know!" scowled Crit.

"You don't know," repeated Angy gravely. "Very good. I wish the court to note that Mr. Crittenden is a very poor observer. Now, Mr. Crittenden, you have stated that you do not know how many cattle you have; nor how many of said cattle are calves; nor how many of said calves are solid color or spotted. Will you kindly inform the court, then, how you know that the calf which has been produced in evidence is yours?"

"Well – " said Crittenden, and then he stopped. The one thing which he was afraid of in this trial was about to happen – Angy was going to corner him on the maternity of the calf, and that would make him out a cow-thief. The district attorney scowled at him to go ahead and then, in order to cover up the failure, he leapt to his feet and cried:

"Your Honor, I object to the line of questioning on the ground that it is irrelevant, incompetent, and immaterial!"

"If the court please," spoke up Angevine Thorne, "the witness has positively identified the calf in question as his own, although it is a matter of record that he possesses four or five thousand calves, all of which have been born within the past year and over half of which are spotted. It is the purpose of the defence to prove that this calf does not belong to the witness; that it was the property of Pecos Dalhart at the time the alleged crime was committed, and that it had been previously stolen by Isaac Crittenden!"

As he shouted these words Angy pointed an accusing finger at Old Crit, who started back like a man who had been struck, and while the clamor of deputies and bailiffs filled the court-room they stood there like the figures in a tableau, glaring at each other with inextinguishable hatred.

"Order in the court! Order in the court!" cried the bailiffs, beating back the crowd, and when the assembly had been quieted the judge motioned to Angy to proceed.

"Objection is overruled," he said, and bent his dark brows upon Isaac Crittenden. "Let the witness answer the question."

"Well, the calf had my brand on it," responded Crittenden defiantly, and then, egged on by Angy's sarcastic smile, he went a step too far. "Yes, and I know him, too!" he blurted out. "I'd know that calf among a thousand, by them spots across his face."

"Oh, you would, would you?" spoke up Angy quickly. "You have a distinct recollection of the animal on account of its peculiar markings then; is that right? Very good. When did you put your brand on that calf, Mr. Crittenden?"

"Last Spring," replied Crittenden grudgingly.

"You know the law regarding the branding of calves," prompted Angy. "Was the calf with its mother at the time?"

"It was!"

"And did she bear the same brand that you burned upon her calf?"

"She did!"

"Any other brands?"

"Nope!"

"Raised her yourself, did you?"

"Yes!" shouted Crittenden angrily.

"That's all!" said Angy briefly, and Isaac Crittenden sank back into his chair, dazed at the very unexpectedness of his escape. It was a perilous line of questioning that his former roustabout had taken up, leading close to the stealing of Upton's cattle and the seizing of Pecos Dalhart's herd, but at the very moment when he might have sprung the mine Angy had withheld his hand. The gaunt cowman tottered to his seat in a smother of perspiration, and Shepherd Kilkenny, after a moment's consideration, decided to make his hand good by calling a host of witnesses.

They came into court, one after the other, the hard-faced gun-men that Crittenden kept about his place, and with the unblinking assurance of men who gamble even with life itself they swore to the stereotyped facts, while Angy said never a word.

"The People rest!" announced the district attorney at last, and lay back smiling in his chair to see what his opponent would spring.

"Your Honor and gentlemen of the jury," began Angevine Thorne, speaking with the easy confidence of a barrister, "the prosecution has gone to great lengths to prove that Pecos Dalhart branded this calf. The defence freely admits that act, but denies all felonious intent. We will show you, gentlemen of the jury, that at the time he branded the animal it was by law and right his own, and that during his absence it had been feloniously and unlawfully branded into the Spectacle brand by the complaining witness, Isaac Crittenden. Mr. Dalhart, will you please take the stand!"

Awkward and shamefaced in the presence of the multitude and painfully conscious of his jail clothes, Pecos mounted to the stand and turned to face his inquisitor. They had rehearsed the scene before – for Babe Thorne was not altogether ignorant of a lawyer's wiles – and his examination went off as smoothly as Kilkenny's examination of Crit, down to the point where Pecos was rudely pounced upon and roped while he was branding his spotted calf. Then it was that Angevine Thorne's voice began to ring like a trumpet, and as he came to the crucial question the audience stood motionless to listen.

"Now, Mr. Dalhart," he clarioned, "you say that you purposely barred the Spectacle brand upon this calf and burned your own brand, which was a Monkey-wrench, below it? What was your reason for that act?"

"My reason was that the calf was mine!" cried Pecos, rising angrily to his feet. "When I first come to Verde Crossing I bought an old spotted cow and her calf from José Garcia and branded them with a Monkey-wrench on the ribs – I kept her around my camp for a milk cow. That first calf growed up and she was jest comin' in with another one when I went to New Mexico last Fall. Well, when I came back last Spring I hadn't got into town yet when I come across my old milk cow with her ears all chopped up and her brand burned over and this little calf, lookin' jest like her, with a Spectacle brand burned on his ribs. That made me mad and I was jest ventin' the calf back to a Monkey-wrench when Crittenden and his cowboys jumped in and roped me!"

"You say that you bought the mother of this calf from José Garcia?"

"Yes, sir! I paid him twenty-five dollars for the cow and five dollars for the first calf."

"What were the brand and markings of this cow at the time you bought her?"

"She had a Mexican brand, like an Injun arrer struck by lightning, on her left hip, a big window or ventano in the left ear, and a slash and underbit in the right. Garcia vented his brand on her shoulder and I run a Monkey-wrench – that's my regular, registered brand – on her ribs, but I never changed her ear marks because I kept her for a milk cow anyway."

"Your Honor," interposed Kilkenny, rising with a bored air to his feet, "I object to this testimony on the ground that it is irrelevant, incompetent, and immaterial. I fail to see the relation of this hypothetical milk cow to the question before the court."