"Sit _down_, both of you!" roared Carmody.
They took seats, but eyed each other like animals crouching to spring.
Carmody lectured them both, and, as he cooled, Hanscom apologized. "I'm
sorry I spoke," he said; "but the ownership of those shoes has got to be
proved. I _know_ they belong to this girl!"
"We'll come to that; don't you worry," said Carmody, and he turned to
Rita, who was cowering in the midst of this uproar like a mountain
quail. "Who told you to deny the ownership of these shoes?"
"Nobody."
"Just reasoned it out yourself, eh?" he asked, with acrid humor. "Well,
you're pretty smart."
The girl, perceiving the importance of her denial, enlarged upon it,
telling of her need of new shoes and of finding this dry, warm pair in a
closet in the cabin. She described minutely the worn-out places of her
own shoes and how she had thrown them into the stove and burned them up,
and the audience listened with renewed conviction that "the strange
woman" was the midnight prowler at the Watson cabin, and that Rita and
her companions were but mischievous hoodlums having no connection with
the murder.
Hanscom, filled with distrust of Carmody, demanded that the sheriff be
called to testify on this point, for he had made search of the cabin in
the first instance.
"We proved at the other session that Miss McLaren was unable to wear the
shoes which made the prints."
"We deny that!" asserted Raines. "That is just the point we are trying
to make. We don't _know_ that this Kauffman woman is unable to wear
those shoes."
Carmody decided to call young Kitsong, and Throop led Rita away and soon
returned with Henry, who came into the room looking like a trapped fox,
bewildered yet alert. He was rumpled and dirty, like one called from
sleep in a corral, but his face appealed to the heart of his mother, who
flung herself toward him with a piteous word of appeal, eager to let
him know that she was present and faithful.
The sheriff stopped her, and her husband--whose parental love was much
less vital--called upon her not to make a fool of herself.
The boy gave his name and age, and stated his relationship to the dead
man, but declared he had not seen him for months. "I didn't know he was
dead till the ranger told me," he said. He denied that he had had any
trouble with Watson. "He is my uncle," he added.
"I've known relatives to fight," commented the coroner, with dry
intonation, and several in the audience laughed, for it was well known
to them that the witness was at outs not only with his uncle, but with
his father.
"Now, Henry," said the coroner, severely, "we know this girl, Rita, made
a night visit to Watson's cabin. We have absolute proof of it. She did
not go there alone. Who was with her? Did you accompany her on this
trip?"
"_No_, sir."
"She never made that trip alone. Some man was with her. If not you, it
must have been Busby."
A sullen look came into the boy's face. "Well, it wasn't me--I know
that."
"Was it Busby?"
He paused for a long time, debating what the effect of his answer would
be. "He may of. I can't say."
Carmody restated his proof that Rita had been there and said: "One or
the other of you went. Now which was it?"
The witness writhed like a tortured animal, and at last said, "He did,"
and Mrs. Eli sighed with relief.
Carmody drew from him the fact that Watson owed Busby money, and that he
had vainly tried to collect it. He would not say that Rita left camp
with Busby, but his keen anxiety to protect her was evident to every one
in the room. He admitted that he expected Busby to have trouble with
Watson.
Mrs. Kitsong, who saw with growing anxiety the drift of the coroner's
questioning, called out: "Tell him the truth, Henry; the whole truth!"
Raines silenced her savagely, and Carmody said: "So Busby had tried to
collect that money before, had he?"
"Tell him 'yes,' Henry," shouted Eli, who was now quite as eager to
shield his son as he had been to convict Helen.
Carmody warned him to be quiet. "You'll have a chance very soon to
testify on this very point," he said, and repeated his question: "Busby
had had a fight with Watson, hadn't he--a regular knockdown row?"
Henry, sweating with fear, now confessed that Busby had returned from
Watson's place furious with anger, and this testimony gave an entirely
new direction to the suspicions of the jurors, several of whom knew
Busby as a tough customer.
Dismissing Henry for the moment, Carmody recalled Margarita. "You swear
you never visited Watson's cabin?" he began. "Well, suppose that I were
to tell you that we know you did, would you still deny it?" She looked
at him in scared silence, trying to measure the force of his question,
while he went on: "You mounted the front steps and went down the porch
to the right, pausing to peer into the window. You kept on to the east
end of the porch, where you dropped to the ground, and continued on
around to the back door. Do you deny that?"
Amazed by the accuracy of his information and awed by his tone, the girl
struggled for an answer, while the audience waited as at a crisis in a
powerful play.