saloon-keeper, who ran his thriving trade conveniently at hand in the
office of the San Xavier. Our group remained near him, and I silently
resolved to sleep here at the hotel, away from the tempting confusion of
army hospitality upon this eve of our trial. We were expected, however,
to dine at the post, and that I was ready to do. Indeed, I could
scarcely have got myself out of it without rudeness, for the ambulance
was waiting us guests at the gate. We went to it along a latticed
passage at the edge of a tropical garden, only a few square yards in
all, but how pretty! and what an oasis of calm in the midst of this
teeming desolation of unrest! It had upon one side the railway station,
wooden, sordid, congesting with malodorous packed humanity; on the next
the rails themselves and the platform, with steam and bells and baggage
trucks rolling and bumping; the hotel stood on the third, a confusion
of tongues and trampings; while a wide space of dust, knee-deep, and
littered with manoeuvring vehicles, hemmed in this silent garden on
the fourth side. A slender slow little fountain dropped inaudibly among
some palms, a giant cactus, and the broad-spread shade of trees I did
not know. This was the whole garden, and a tame young antelope was its
inhabitant. He lay in the unchanging shade, his large eyes fixed
remotely upon the turmoil of this world, and a sleepy charm touched my
senses as I looked at his domain. Instead of going to dinner, or going
anywhere, I should have liked to recline indefinitely beneath those
palms and trail my fingers in the cool fountain. Such enlightened
languor, however, could by no happy chance be the lot of an important
witness in a Western robbery trial, and I dined and wined with the
jovial officers, at least talking no business.
With business I was sated. Pidcock and the attorney for the United
States--I can remember neither his name nor the proper title of his
office, for he was a nobody, and I had forgotten his features each new
time that we met--had mapped out the trial to me, preparing and
rehearsing me in my testimony until they had pestered me into a hatred
of them both. And when word was brought me here, dining at Lowell
Barracks, where I had imagined myself safe from justice, that this same
attorney was waiting to see me, I rose and I played him a trick.
Possibly I should not have done it but for the saloon-keeper in the
afternoon and this sustained dining now; but I sent him word I should be
with him directly--and I wandered into Tucson by myself!
Faithful to my last strong impression there, I went straight to the tiny
hotel garden, and in that darkness lay down in a delicious and torpid
triumph. The attorney was most likely waiting still. No one on earth
knew where I was. Pidcock could not trace me now. I could see the stars
through the palms and the strange trees, the fountain made a little
sound, somewhere now and then I could hear the antelope, and, cloaked in
this black serenity, I lay smiling. Once an engine passed heavily,
leaving the station utterly quiet again, and the next I knew it was the
antelope's rough tongue that waked me, and I found him nibbling and
licking my hand. People were sitting in the latticed passage, and from
the light in the office came Mr. Mowry, untying a canvas sack that he
held. At this sight my truancy to discretion was over, and no head could
be more wakeful or clear than mine instantly became.
"How much d'yer want this time, Mr. Jenks?" inquired Mowry.
I could not hear the statesman's reply, but thought, while the sound of
clinking came to me, how a common cause will often serve to reconcile
the most bitter opponents. I did not dare go nearer to catch all their
talk, and I debated a little upon my security even as it was, until my
own name suddenly reached me.
"Him?" said Mowry; "that there tailor-made boy? They've got him sleepin'
at the Barracks."
"Nobody but our crowd's boarding here," said some one.
"They think we're laying for their witnesses," said the voice of Jenks.
And among the various mingled laughs rose distinct a big one that I
knew.
"Oh, ho, ho! Well, yes. Tell you about witnesses. Here's all there is
to them: spot cash to their figure, and kissing the Book. You've done no
work but what I told you?" he added, sharply.
"We haven't needed to worry about witnesses in any shape, Bishop."
"That's good. That's economy. That little Eastern toorist is harmless."
"Leave him talk, Bishop. Leave 'em all tell their story."
"It's going to cost the whole stake, though," said Jenks.
"Deserted Jericho!" remarked old Meakum.
"I don't try cases for nothing, Bishop. The deal's covered. My clients
have publicly made over to me their horses and saddles."
"Oh, ho, ho!" went the Bishop. But this last word about the horses was
the only part of the talk I could not put a plain meaning upon.
Mr. Mowry I now saw re-enter the lighted door of the office, with his
canvas sack in his hand. "This'll be right here in the safe," said he.
"All right," answered Jenks. "I'll not be likely to call on you any more
for a day or so."
"Hello!" said the office clerk, appearing in his shirt-sleeves. "You
fellows have made me forget the antelope." He took down a lantern, and I
rose to my feet.
"Give us a drink before you feed him," said Jenks. Then I saw the whole
of them crowd into the door for their nightcap, and that was all I
waited for.
I climbed the garden fence. My thoughts led me at random through
quantities of soft dust, and over the rails, I think, several times,
until I stood between empty and silent freight trains, and there sat
down. Harmless! It seemed to me they would rate me differently in the
morning. So for a while my mind was adrift in the turbulent
cross-currents of my discovery; but it was with a smooth, innocent
surface that I entered the hotel office and enjoyed the look of the
clerk when he roused and heard me, who, according to their calculations,
should have been in slumber at the Barracks, asking to be shown my room
here. I was tempted to inquire if he had fed the antelope--such was the
pride of my elation--and I think he must have been running over
questions to put me; but the two of us marched up the stairs with a lamp
and a key, speaking amiably of the weather for this time of year, and he
unlocked my door with a politeness and hoped I would sleep well with a
consideration that I have rarely met in the hotel clerk. I did not sleep
well. Yet it seemed not to matter. By eight I had breakfast, and found
the attorney--Rocklin I shall name him, and that will have to
answer--and told him how we had become masters of the situation.
He made me repeat it all over, jotting memoranda this second time; and
when my story was done, he sat frowning at his notes, with a cigar
between his teeth.
"This ain't much," he said. "Luckily I don't need anything more. I've
got a dead open-and-shut case without it."
"Why don't you make it deader, then?" said I. "Don't you see what it all
means?"
"Well, what does it all mean?"
Either the man was still nettled at my treatment of him last evening, or
had no liking for amateur opinions and help; otherwise I see no reason
for the disparagement with which he regarded me while I interpreted
what I had overheard, piece by piece, except the horse and saddle
remark.
"Since that don't seem clear, I'll explain it to you," he said, "and
then you'll know it all. Except their horses and saddles, the accused
haven't a red cent to their names--not an honest one, that is. So it
looks well for them to be spending all they've apparently got in the
world to pay counsel fees. Now I have this case worked up," he pursued,
complacently, "so that any such ambiguous stuff as yours is no good to
me at all--would be harmful, in fact. It's not good policy, my friend,
to assail the character of opposing counsel. And Bishop Meakum! Are you
aware of his power and standing in this section? Do you think you're
going to ring him in?"
"Great goodness!" I cried. "Let me testify, and then let the safe be
opened."
Rocklin looked at me a moment, the cigar wagging between his teeth, and
then he lightly tossed his notes in the waste-paper basket.
"Open your safe," said he, "and what then? Up steps old Mowry and says,
'I'll thank you to let my property alone.' Where's your proof? What word
did any of them drop that won't bear other constructions? Mowry's well
known to have money, and he has a right to give it to Jenks."
"If the gold could be identified?" I suggested.
"That's been all attended to," he answered, with increasing complacence.
"I'm obliged to you for your information, and in a less sure case I
might risk using it, but--why, see here; we've got 'em hands down!" And
he clapped me on the knee. "If I had met you last evening I was going to
tell you our campaign. Pidcock'll come first, of course, and his
testimony'll cover pretty much the whole ground. Then, you see, the
rest of you I'll use mainly in support. Sergeant Brown--he's very
strong, and the black woman, and you--I'll probably call you third or
fourth. So you'll be on hand sure now?"
Certainly I had no thought of being anywhere else. The imminence of our
trial was now heralded by the cook's coming to Rocklin's office punctual
to his direction, and after her Pidcock almost immediately. It was not
many minutes before the more important ones of us had gathered, and we
proceeded to court, once again a Combination Extraordinary--a spectacle
for Tucson. So much stir and prosperity had not blossomed in the town
for many years, its chief source of life being the money that Lowell
Barracks brought to it. But now its lodgings were crowded and its
saloons and Mexican dens of entertainment waked to activity. From a
dozing sunburnt village of adobe walls and almond-trees it was become
something like those places built in a single Western day of riot
extravagance, where corner lots are clamored for and men pay a dollar to
be shaved.
Jenks was before us in the room with his clients. He was practising what
I always think of as his celluloid smile, whispering, and all-hail with
everybody. One of the prisoners had just such another mustache as his
own, too large for his face; and this had led me since to notice a type
of too large mustaches through our country in all ranks, but of similar
men, who generally have either stolen something or lacked the
opportunity. Catching sight of me, Jenks came at once, friendly as you
please, shaking my passive hand, and laughing that we should meet again
under such circumstances.
"When we're through this nuisance," said he, "you must take dinner with
me. Just now, you understand, it wouldn't look well to see me hobnobbing
with a government witness. See you again!" And he was off to some one
else.
I am confident this man could not see himself as others--some others, at
least--saw him. To him his whole performance was natural and
professional, and my view that he was more infamous by far than the
thieves would have sincerely amazed him. Indeed, for one prisoner I felt
very sorry. Young black curly was sitting there, and, in contrast to Mr.
Adams, down whose beard the tobacco forever ran, he seemed downcast and
unhardened, I thought. He was getting his deserts through base means. It
was not for the sake of justice but from private revenge that Mrs.
Sproud had moved; and, after all, had the boy injured her so much as
this? Yet how could I help him? They were his deserts. My mood was
abruptly changed to diversion when I saw among our jury specimens of
both types of Meakum, and prominent among the spectator throng their
sire, that canny polygamist, surveying the case with the same forceful
attention I had noticed first in the House of Representatives, and ever
since that day. But I had a true shock of surprise now. Mrs. Sproud was
in court. There could be no mistake. No one seemed to notice her, and I
wondered if many in the town knew her face, and with what intent she had
returned to this dangerous neighborhood. I was so taken up with watching
her and her furtive appearance in the almost concealed position she had
chosen that I paid little heed to the government's opening of its case.
She had her eyes upon black curly, but he could not see her. Pidcock
was in the midst of his pompous recital when the court took its noon
intermission. Then I was drawn to seek out black curly as he was
conducted to his dinner.
"Good-day," said he, as I came beside him.
"I wish I didn't have to go on oath about this," I said.
"Oath away," he answered, doggedly. "What's that got to do with me?"
"Oh, come!" I exclaimed.
"Come where?" He looked at me defiantly.
"When people don't wish to be trailed," I went on, "do I understand they
sometimes spread a blanket and lead their horses on it and take off
their shoes? I'm merely asking out of a traveller's curiosity."
"I guess you'll have to ask them that's up on such tricks," he answered,
grinning.
I met him in the eyes, and a strong liking for him came over me. "I
probably owe you my life," I said, huskily. "I know I do. And I
hate--you must consider me a poor sort of bird."
"Blamed if I know what you're drivin' at," said black curly. But he
wrinkled his forehead in the pleasant way I remembered. "Yer whiskey was
good all right," he added, and gave me his hand.
"Look here," said I. "She's come back."
This took the boy unguarded, and he swore with surprise. Then his face
grew sombre. "Let her," he remarked; and that was all we said.
At the afternoon sitting I began to notice how popular sympathy was not
only quite against the United States, but a sentiment amounting to
hatred was shown against all soldiers. The voice of respectability
seemed entirely silent; decent citizens were there, but not enough of
them. The mildest opinion was that Uncle Sam could afford to lose money
better than poor people, and the strongest was that it was a pity the
soldiers had not been killed. This seemed inappropriate in a Territory
desiring admission to our Union. I supposed it something local then, but
have since observed it to be a prevailing Western antipathy. The
unthinking sons of the sage-brush ill tolerate a thing which stands for
discipline, good order, and obedience, and the man who lets another
command him they despise. I can think of no threat more evil for our
democracy, for it is a fine thing diseased and perverted--namely,
independence gone drunk.
Pidcock's examination went forward, and the half-sack of gold from the
hay-stack brought a great silence in court. The Major's identification
of the gold was conducted by Rocklin with stage effect, for it was an
undoubted climax; but I caught a most singular smile on the face of
Bishop Meakum, and there sat Mrs. Sproud, still solitary and engulfed in
the throng, her face flushed and her eyes blazing. And here ended the
first day.
In the morning came the Major's cross-examination, with the room more
crowded than before, but I could not find Mrs. Sproud. Rocklin did not
believe I had seen her, and I feared something had happened to her. The
Bishop had walked to the court with Jenks, talking and laughing upon
general subjects, so far as I could hear. The counsel for the prisoners
passed lightly over the first part of the evidence, only causing an
occasional laugh on the score of the Major's military prowess, until he
came to the gold.
"You said this sack was one of yours, Major?" he now inquired.
"It is mine, sir."
A large bundle of sacks was brought. "And how about these? Here are ten,
fifteen--about forty. I'll get some more if you say so. Are they all
yours?"
"Your question strikes me as idle, sir." The court rapped, and Jenks
smiled. "They resemble mine," said Pidcock. "But they are not used."
"No; not used." Jenks held up the original, shaking the gold. "Now I'm
going to empty your sack for a moment."
"I object," said Rocklin, springing up.
"Oh, it's all counted," laughed Jenks; and the objection was not
sustained. Then Jenks poured the gold into a new sack and shook that
aloft. "It makes them look confusingly similar, Major. I'll just put my
card in your sack."
"I object," said Rocklin, with anger, but with futility. Jenks now
poured the gold back into the first, then into a third, and thus into
several, tossing them each time on the table, and the clinking pieces
sounded clear in the room. Bishop Meakum was watching the operation like
a wolf. "Now, Major," said Jenks, "is your gold in the original sack, or
which sack is my card in?"
This was the first time that the room broke out loudly; and Pidcock,
when the people were rapped to order, said, "The sack's not the thing."
"Of course not. The gold is our point. And of course you had a private
mark on it. Tell the jury, please, what the private mark was."
He had none. He spoke about dates, and new coins, he backed and filled,
swelled importantly, and ended like a pricked bladder by recanting his
identification.
"That is all I have to say for the present," said Jenks.
"Don't complicate the issue by attempting to prove too much, Mr.
Rocklin," said the judge.
Rocklin flushed, and called the next witness, whispering sulkily to me,
"What can you expect if the court starts out against you?" But the court
was by no means against him. The judge was merely disgusted over
Rocklin's cardinal folly of identifying coin under such loose
conditions.
And now came the testimony of Sergeant Brown. He told so clear a story
as to chill the enthusiasm of the room. He pointed to the man with the
mustache, black curly, and yellow. "I saw them shooting from the right
of the road," he said. Jenks tried but little to shake him, and left him
unshaken. He was followed by the other wounded soldier, whose story was
nearly the same, except that he identified different prisoners.
"Who did you say shot you?" inquired Jenks. "Which of these two?"
"I didn't say. I don't know."
"Don't know a man when he shoots you in broad daylight?"
"Plenty was shooting at me," said the soldier. And his testimony also
remained unshaken.
Then came my own examination, and Jenks did not trouble me at all, but,
when I had likewise identified the men I knew, simply bowed smilingly,
and had no questions to ask his friend from the East.
Our third morning began with the negress, who said she was married, told
a scattered tale, and soon stated that she was single, explaining later
that she had two husbands, and one was dead, while the other had
disappeared from her ten years ago. Gradually her alarm subsided and
she achieved coherence.
"What did this gentleman do at the occurrence?" inquired Jenks,
indicating me.
"Dat gemman? He jes flew, sir, an' I don' blame him fo' bein' no wusser
skeer'd dan de hole party. Yesser, we all flew scusin' dey two pore
chillun; an' we stayed till de 'currence was ceased."
"But the gentleman says he sat on a stone, and saw those men firing."
"Land! I seed him goin' like he was gwineter Fo't Grant. He run up de
hill, an' de Gennul he run down like de day of judgment."
"The General ran?"
"Lawd grashus, honey, yo' could have played checkers on dey coat tails
of his."
The court rapped gently.
"But the gold must have been heavy to carry away to the horses. Did not
the General exert his influence to rally his men?"
"No, sah. De Gennul went down de hill, an' he took his inflooence with
him."
"I have no further questions," said Jenks. "When we come to our alibis,
gentlemen, I expect to satisfy you that this lady saw more correctly,
and when she is unable to recognize my clients it is for a good reason."
"We've not got quite so far yet," Rocklin observed. "We've reached the
hay-stack at present."
"Aren't you going to make her describe her own confusion more?" I began,
but stopped, for I saw that the next witness was at hand, and that it
was Mrs. Sproud.
"How's this?" I whispered to Rocklin. "How did you get her?"
"She volunteered this morning, just before trial. We're in big luck."
The woman was simply dressed in something dark. Her handsome face was
pale, but she held a steady eye upon the jury, speaking clearly and with
deliberation. Old Meakum, always in court and watchful, was plainly
unprepared for this, and among the prisoners, too, I could discern
uneasiness. Whether or no any threat or constraint had kept her
invisible during these days, her coming now was a thing for which none
of us were ready.
"What do I know?" she repeated after the counsel. "I suppose you have
been told what I said I knew."
"We'd like to hear it directly from you, Mrs. Sproud," Rocklin
explained.
"Where shall I start?"
"Well, there was a young man who boarded with you, was there not?"
"I object to the witness being led," said Jenks. And Bishop Meakum moved
up beside the prisoners' counsel and began talking with him earnestly.
"Nobody is leading me," said Mrs. Sproud, imperiously, and raising her
voice a little. She looked about her. "There was a young man who boarded
with me. Of course that is so."
Meakum broke off in his confidences with Jenks, and looked sharply at
her.
"Do you see your boarder anywhere here?" inquired Rocklin; and from his
tone I perceived that he was puzzled by the manner of his witness.
She turned slowly, and slowly scrutinized the prisoners one by one. The
head of black curly was bent down, and I saw her eyes rest upon it while
she stood in silence. It was as if he felt the summons of her glance,
for he raised his head. His face was scarlet, but her paleness did not
change.
"He is the one sitting at the end," she said, looking back at the jury.
She then told some useless particulars, and brought her narrative to the
afternoon when she had heard the galloping. "Then I hid. I hid because
this is a rough country."
"When did you recognize that young man's voice?"
"I did not recognize it."
Black curly's feet scraped as he shifted his position.
"Collect yourself, Mrs. Sproud. We'll give you all the time you want. We
know ladies are not used to talking in court. Did you not hear this
young man talking to his friends?"
"I heard talking," replied the witness, quite collected. "But I could
not make out who they were. If I could have been sure it was him and
friends, I wouldn't have stayed hid. I'd have had no call to be scared."
Rocklin was dazed, and his next question came in a voice still more
changed and irritable.
"Did you see any one?"
"No one."
"What did you hear them say?"
"They were all talking at once. I couldn't be sure."
"Why did you go to the hay-stack?"
"Because they said something about my hay-stack, and I wanted to find
out, if I could."
"Did you not write their names on a paper and give it to this gentleman?
Remember you are on oath, Mrs. Sproud."
By this time a smile was playing on the features of Jenks, and he and
Bishop Meakum talked no longer together, but sat back to watch the
woman's extraordinary attempt to undo her work. It was shrewd, very
shrewd, in her to volunteer as our witness instead of as theirs. She was
ready for the paper question, evidently.
"I wrote--" she began, but Rocklin interrupted.
"On oath, remember!" he repeated, finding himself cross-examining his
own witness. "The names you wrote are the names of these prisoners here
before the court. They were traced as the direct result of your
information. They have been identified by three or four persons. Do you
mean to say you did not know who they were?"
"I did not know," said Mrs. Sproud, firmly. "As for the paper, I acted
hasty. I was a woman, alone, and none to consult or advise me. I thought
I would get in trouble if I did not tell about such goings on, and I
just wrote the names of Will--of the boys that came round there all the
time, thinking it was most likely them. I didn't see him, and I didn't
make out surely it was his voice. I wasn't sure enough to come out and
ask what they were up to. I didn't stop to think of the harm I was doing
on guess-work."
For the first time the note of remorse conquered in her voice. I saw how
desperation at what she had done when she thought her love was cured was
now bracing the woman to this audacity.
"Remember," said Rocklin, "the gold was also found as the direct result
of your information. It was you who told Major Pidcock in the ambulance
about the seven sacks."
"I never said anything about seven sacks."
This falsehood was a master-stroke, for only half a sack had been found.
She had not written this down. There was only the word of Pidcock and me
to vouch for it, while against us stood her denial, and the actual
quantity of gold.
"I have no further questions," said Rocklin.