IN COURT.
Court had taken up after the noon recess. The evidence was all in,
and the prosecuting attorney had made a masterly address demanding a
prison sentence for Tom Clipperton. The prosecutor had so marshaled the
evidence that there did not seem a possible hope for Clip. The jurymen
looked convinced, and the defiant bearing of the prisoner, which at
no time had appealed to their sympathies, was far from making such an
appeal now.
Short was in despair. He was not the man, however, to throw up his
hands until the jury had announced their verdict and had been polled.
Short had begun his plea at eleven o'clock. He could have finished by
noon, but he was talking against time, and announced that he would
complete his address after court reconvened.
The train from Prescott was due at one-thirty. One of his clerks
brought him word that it was five minutes late. With one eye on the
clock he continued to reiterate some of the remarks he had already made.
The jury looked bored, the prosecuting attorney, who did not know what
was up, smiled sarcastically, and the judge settled back in his chair
with a look of resignation.
Just as the hands of the court-room clock pointed to a quarter of two
there was a stir at the door. A crowd of excited men surged through, a
red-haired boy, haggard, his face and hands covered with the grime of
more than a hundred miles in a locomotive-cab, led the crowd. The boy
staggered as he pressed through the room toward the enclosure.
"Evidence!" cried the red-haired boy huskily; "evidence for Tom
Clipperton!"
There was a brief period of silence, during which the prisoner jumped
to his feet and peered wonderingly at Chub McReady. Leffingwell, in
charge of Clipperton, caught his arm and pulled him roughly back into
his seat.
In another moment a buzz of excitement ran through the room, and was
rapidly increasing to an uproar when the bailiff pounded for order.
"The room will be cleared," warned the judge, "unless we can have
quiet."
Short, doubtful but snatching at a straw of hope, turned to the judge
and requested that the case be reopened for the taking of further
evidence. The prosecutor was instantly on his feet with an objection.
Objection was overruled.
"I will call Chub McReady to the stand," said Short.
Another objection from the prosecutor. McReady's evidence was already
in, according to the representative of the people, in the form of an
affidavit.
Short begged to remind the learned counsel for the State that it was
Matt King's affidavit that had been read in court, and not McReady's.
Objection overruled. Chub made his way unsteadily to the witness-chair,
stood up while he was being sworn, and then dropped down in a way that
showed how spent he was with recent efforts.
Fresh interest was injected into the case. The twelve good men and true
in the jury-box were anything but bored now. Chub bore all the marks of
having passed through a trying ordeal of some kind, and it must have
been in behalf of the prisoner.
In the dead silence that fell over the room while Short was
impressively making ready to begin his examination, a piping voice
floated through the intense quiet.
"Shade o' Gallopin' Dick! It's Chub, my leetle pard, Chub! Him an'
Motor Matt hev been workin' their heads off to git evidence fer
Clipperton, an' here----"
"Silence!" thundered the judge. "Officer," he added, "if that man makes
any more disturbance, put him out."
Welcome Perkins subsided. The prosecutor frowned, and Short looked
pleased. Something had got to the jury which would help, rather than
injure, the defendant.
"Your name?" asked Short, facing Chub.
"Mark McReady," came the answer, in a voice that trembled from fatigue
and excitement.
"Age?"
"Seventeen."
"Place of residence?"
"Phoenix."
"Occupation?"
"Inventor."
Somebody snickered.
"Waal, he is!" cried Welcome. "Dad-bing!"
The officer started toward the reformed road-agent, and Welcome ducked
into a corner of the room and hid behind a fat man who hadn't been able
to find a seat.
"I will ask you to tell the jury, Mark," said Short, "just what you and
Matt King have been doing in Prescott."
The prosecutor was on his feet like a shot, objecting, of course.
The judge knitted his brows.
"If it is pertinent to any evidence already introduced," decided his
honor, "it can go in."
"It's an affidavit from Pima Pete!" quavered Chub, holding up the
letter.
"Wait!" shouted the prosecutor.
"Don't speak, my boy, till I ask you something," said Short.
The prosecutor and Short got their heads together at the judge's desk,
and the affidavit of Pima Pete was looked over.
"This is entirely relevant," declared the judge, "and we will have it
read."
The affidavit was handed to the clerk, and he read the same in a loud,
incisive voice.
The document stated, in clear, crisp terms, that the deponent was
one Peter Sebastian, otherwise known as Pima Pete, that he had been
a member of Dangerfield's gang of smugglers, told how Dangerfield
had sold cattle and buried ten thousand dollars in double eagles,
had intended to dig the money up on his way to Mexico, and had been
captured before he could carry out his plans. The affidavit then went
on to state how Dangerfield had requested Motor Matt to dig up the
money for him, claiming that it was honest money, and send the lion's
share of it to Dangerfield's father, in Emmetsburg, Iowa; how Pima Pete
had given a note to Clipperton, asking him to tell Matt to come for the
gold; how Matt had refused to mix up with Pete, and how Clipperton had
gone, had joined Pete, had helped dig up the gold, and how both had
been set upon by Hogan and Leffingwell.
That affidavit, written by Motor Matt in a tearing hurry, was a model
of clearness and brevity.
The prosecutor was on hand with a whole lot of objections, aimed at
having the affidavit stricken from the record. In the first place, the
affidavit was in lead-pencil. This was unusual, and would allow of
changing its contents; in the next place, how were they to know that
Pima Pete, a proscribed outlaw, was the real author of the document?
And what credence was a half-breed entitled to, anyway, even when under
oath?
By all these objections the prosecutor, to use a very figurative
expression, "put his foot in it."
Short was obliged to show, by the witness, just how the affidavit had
been secured, and an opening was made for the tale of pluck and daring
in which Matt and Chub had just figured.
Chub, at times almost overcome with weariness and grief, told the
story. It was a telling recital, and held the great roomful of people
spellbound. The jurymen leaned forward in their chairs, the judge
leaned over his table, everybody craned their necks and listened
intently so that not a word might get away from them.
Chub told how he and Matt had made up their minds to do everything they
could to free their innocent chum; how Matt had drawn from the bank
some of the money paid for the capture of Dangerfield, and had declared
he would use every last cent of it to free Clip, who had got into his
trouble on Dangerfield's account; how they had gone to Prescott, after
receiving the tip at Mrs. Spooner's; how they had been chased by the
two horsemen, and had got away by leaping the break in the road; how
the weary days had dragged by in Prescott; how Matt had started Sheriff
Burke to searching for the real robbers; how the note, tied to the
stone, had been hurled through the hotel window on the night of the
storm; and how the witness and Matt had gone to the old Hopewell shaft
and met Pima Pete.
If the interest up to that point had been absorbing, it now became even
more so.
Chub, in his quivering tones, went on to describe the meeting with Pima
Pete, and Matt's plan for taking his affidavit, having a notary rushed
out from Prescott, and then passing the document up to Chub on the
Limited.
Chub had fortunately found the notary in his office; and in front of
the office a horse and buggy were standing. He had hustled the notary
off in short order, and had then gone to the station and taken the
train, riding in the cab with Jack Moody, the engineer, who was a
friend of the witness' father.
Just how Matt had accomplished the taking of the affidavit, Chub
could not tell. All he knew was that when the limited dashed along
the rails, some two miles out of Prescott, the notary, Matt, and Pima
Pete were in the wagon-road, Pima Pete holding the notary's horse and
Matt climbing after the train on his motor-cycle, the _Comet_, the
machine Matt had won in a bicycle-race. Then Chub, mightily worked
up himself and showing it in every word and gesture, proceeded to
tell how he had tried to lean from the gangway and take the letter
from Matt; how he had been thrown back by the fireman, only to get
through the cab-window, hurry along the running-board, drop down on
the steam-chest, and snatch the letter from Motor Matt's fingers. A
sob came from him as he described how, standing on the foot-board and
gripping the rail, he had seen the freight-wagon in the road and had
heard a crash as Matt had collided with it, being unable to see ahead
on account of the smoke, and unable, even if he had seen his danger, to
stop the terrible impetus of a motor-cycle going at the rate of a mile
a minute.
Here, at the finish of his recital, Chub McReady broke down. In spite
of the bailiff's half-hearted attempt to keep order, pandemonium broke
loose. Susie McReady ran to her brother's side, and Welcome, nearly
oversetting the fat man, tore through the shouting crowd to get to the
witness-chair.
Finally, order was again restored, and Short, bland and mightily
satisfied with the turn of events, asked the prosecutor to "take the
witness."
The prosecutor had nothing to say, and Chub got down and walked wearily
to a seat beside Susie and Welcome.
And Clip! The first real feeling he had shown he showed then. With
his face in his hands he leaned across the table beside which he was
sitting.
Short finished his plea. He did not consume much time, for he was an
astute lawyer and knew when he had his jury with him. Jurymen are
emotional, as well as any one else; they can weigh the evidence, but
sentiment cuts a big figure in any jury's decision--just how big
probably even the jurymen themselves do not know.
The judge's charge was brief. He asked the jurymen to weigh the facts
irrespective of the impression the heroism of the prisoner's friends
might have had on them.
And when the charge was finished, without leaving their seats, a
verdict of "not guilty" was rendered.
Then Bedlam broke loose again. Everybody crowded around Tom Clipperton
to congratulate him.
But Clipperton, pushing his way through the crowd, started for the door.
"My pard!" he cried. "He's hurt, perhaps dead! I must get to Prescott."