The valley had wakened early in expectation of an exciting day. The news
of the capture of Busby and his companions had been telephoned from
house to house and from ranch to ranch, and the streets were already
filled with farmers and their families, adorned as for a holiday. The
entire population of Shellfish Canyon had assembled, voicing high
indignation at the ranger's interference. Led by Abe and Eli, who busily
proclaimed that the arrest of Henry and his companions was merely a
trick to divert suspicion from the Kauffman woman, they advanced upon
the coroner.
Abe had failed of getting a warrant for the ranger, but boasted that he
had the promise of one as soon as the inquest should be ended.
"Furthermore," he said, "old Louis Cuneo is on his way over the range,
and I'll bet something will start the minute he gets in."
Carmody, who was disposed to make as much of his position as the
statutes permitted, had called the hearing in a public hall which stood
a few doors south of his office, and at ten o'clock the aisles were so
jammed with expectant auditors that Throop was forced to bring his
witnesses in at the back door. Nothing like this trial in the way of
free entertainment had been offered since the day Jim Nolan was lynched
from the railway bridge.
Hanscom was greatly cheered by the presence of his chief, Supervisor
Rawlins, who came into the coroner's office about a quarter to ten. He
had driven over from Cambria in anxious haste, greatly puzzled by the
rumors which had reached him. He was a keen young Marylander, a college
graduate, with considerable experience in the mountain West. He liked
Hanscom and trusted him, and when the main points of the story were
clear in his mind he said:
"You did perfectly right, Hans, and I'll back you in it. I'm something
of a dabster at law myself, and I'll see that Kitsong don't railroad you
into jail. What worries me is the general opposition now being
manifested. With the whole Shellfish Valley on edge, your work will be
hampered. It will make your position unpleasant for a while at least."
Hanscom uneasily shifted his glance. "That doesn't matter. I'm going to
quit the work, anyhow."
"Oh no, you're not!"
"Yes, I am. I wrote out my resignation this morning."
Rawlins was sadly disturbed. "I hate to have you let this gang drive you
out."
"It isn't that," replied Hanscom, somberly. "The plain truth is, Jack,
I've lost interest in the work. If Miss McLaren is cleared--and she will
be--she'll go East, and I don't see myself going back alone into the
hills."
The supervisor studied him in silence for a moment, and his voice was
gravely sympathetic as he said: "I see! This girl has made your cabin
seem a long way from town."
"She's done more than that, Jack. She's waked me up. She's shown me that
I can't afford to ride trail and camp and cook and fight fire any more.
I've got to get out into the world and rustle a home that a girl like
her can be happy in. I'm started at last. I want to do something. I'm as
ambitious as a ward politician!"
The supervisor smiled. "I get you! I'm sorry to lose you, but I guess
you are right. If you're bent on winning a woman, you're just about
obliged to jump out and try something else. But don't quit until I have
time to put a man in your place."
Hanscom promised this, although at the moment he had a misgiving that
the promise might prove a burden, and together they walked over to the
hall.
The crowded room was very quiet as the ranger and his chief entered and
took seats near the platform on which the coroner and his jury were
already seated. It was evident, even at a glance, that the audience was
very far from being dominated, or even colored, by the Shellfish crowd,
and yet, as none of the spectators, men or women, really knew the
Kauffmans, they could not be called friendly. They were merely curious.
Hanscom was somewhat relieved to find that the jury was not precisely
the same as it had been on the hillside. An older and better man had
replaced Steve Billop, a strong partisan of Kitsong's; but to
counter-balance this a discouraging feature developed in the presence of
William Raines, a dark, oily, whisky-soaked man of sixty, a lawyer whose
small practice lay among the mountaineers of Watson's type.
"He's here as Kitsong's attorney," whispered the ranger, who regretted
that he had not made greater efforts to secure legal aid. However, the
presence of his chief, a man of education and experience, reassured him
in some degree.
Carmody, rejoicing in his legal supremacy, and moved by love of drama,
opened proceedings with all the dignity and authority of a judge,
explaining in sonorous terms that this was an adjourned session of an
inquest upon the death of one Edward Watson, a rancher on the
Shellfish.
"New witnesses have been secured and new evidence has developed," he
said in closing, "and Mr. L. J. Hanscom, the forest ranger, who has
important testimony to give, will first take the stand."
Though greatly embarrassed by the eyes of the vast audience and somewhat
intimidated by the judicial tone of Carmody's voice, Hanscom went
forward and told his story almost without interruption, and at the end
explained his own action.
"Of course, I didn't intend to help anybody side-step justice when I
took the Kauffmans to the station, because I heard the coroner say he
had excused them."
"What about those raiders?" asked one of the jurors. "Did you recognize
the man who shot Kauffman's horse?"
Carmody interrupted: "We can't go into that. That has no connection with
the question which we are to settle, which is, Who killed Watson?"
"Seems to me there is a connection," remarked Rawlins. "If those raiders
were the same people Hanscom arrested in the cabin, wouldn't it prove
something as to their character?"
"Sure thing!" answered another of the jurors.
"A man who would shoot a horse like that might shoot a man, 'pears to
me," said a third.
"All right," said Carmody. "Mr. Hanscom, you may answer. Did you
recognize the man who fired that shot?"
"No, he was too far away; but the horse he rode was a sorrel--the same
animal which the Cuneo girl rode."