The Fur Bringers Part 68

"This is positive evidence, gentlemen. Those in the house saw the prisoner give an order to bear away the dead bodies, and the order was obeyed. Such little facts are highly significant.

"Watusk's evidence makes the next link. I do not attempt to justify this unfortunate man, gentlemen. At least he is contrite, and throws himself on the mercy of the court. Watusk says when they came back across the river the Indians were sorry for what they had done and terrified of punishment.

"Watusk urged them to return what they had stolen. He had taken no part in the looting of the store. But Ambrose Doane would have none of it. He persuaded Watusk to give the order to break camp and fly back to the Kakisa River. Doane promised the bewildered Indian that he would make good terms for the offenders with the police when they came.

"Doane's contention that he was a prisoner among the Kakisas is unsupported. Watusk and five other Indians have sworn that not only was he free to come and go as he chose, but that he directed their movements.

"As to the prisoner's story of the Indian girl, ah--a touching story, gentlemen!" Mr. Pascoe paused for a comfortable, silent little laugh.

He wiped his eyes. "Almost worthy of one of our popular romancers!

"Not very original perhaps, the beautiful Indian maid falling a victim to the charms of the pale-faced prisoner, whispering to him at night through a c.h.i.n.k in his prison wall, and smuggling a knife to a.s.sist his escape!

"Not very original, I say; is it possible he could have read it somewhere, adding a few little touches of his own? Unfortunately, our story-teller in his desire for artistic verisimilitude has overreached himself.

"That touch about Nesis--if that is what he called her, being the fourth wife of Watusk. Why fourth? one wonders. You have heard Lona testify that she was Watusk's one and only wife. She ought to know. I fancy I need say no more about that.

"Next comes Inspector Egerton. The inspector testifies that the trap set for his men in the hills north of the Kakisa River was of an ingenuity far beyond the compa.s.s of the Indian imagination. You have seen a plan of it. You have heard these simple, ignorant red men testify here. Could they have made such a plan? Impossible!

"Gentlemen, I ask you to consider the situation on that fair morning in September when the gallant little band of redcoats rode into that h.e.l.lishly planned trap. The heart quails at the imminence of their peril!

"That a horrible tragedy was by a miracle averted is no credit to this prisoner. That, instead of being the most execrated murderer in the history of our land, he is only on trial for a felony he has not himself to thank. He has to thank the Merciful Providence on High who caused the red man's heart to relent at the critical moment!

"Watusk could not give the order to shoot. You have heard the policemen testify that the prisoner was furious at the Indian's pusillanimity. I say it was a G.o.d-sent pusillanimity!

"Our merciful law makes a distinction between successful and unsuccessful crimes, though there is no difference in the criminal. He is lucky! Gentlemen, all that justice demands of you is that you should find him guilty of treason-felony!"

Mr. Pascoe sat down and blew his nose with loud, conscious modesty.

The jury looked pleased and flattered. An excited murmur traveled about the courtroom, and the judge picked up his gavel to suppress threatened applause.

There could be no doubt as to the way popular opinion tended in this trial. Though the applause was stopped before it began, one could feel the crowd's animus against the prisoner no less than if they had shouted "Hang him!" with one voice.

They believed that he had plotted against the popular idols, the mounted police; that was enough.

The prisoner sat at a table beside his counsel with his chin in his palm. He was well dressed and groomed--Denholm saw to that--and his face composed, though very pale; the eyes l.u.s.terless.

Throughout Mr. Pascoe's arraignment he scarcely moved, nor appeared to pay more than cursory attention.

It is the characteristic picture of a prisoner on trial; guilty or innocent makes little difference on the surface. Nature, when we have reached the limit of endurance, lends us apathy.

Ambrose had suffered so much he was dulled to suffering. He had not a friend in the court-room except Arthur Denholm. Peter Minot, after making a deposition in his favor, had been obliged to hasten north to look after their endangered business.

There were others who would have been glad to support him, but he would not call on them. Indeed what he most dreaded were the occasional testimonials of sympathy which reached him. Friendliness unmanned him.

The other way in which his ordeal made itself felt was in his great longing to have it over with. He looked forward to the cell which he believed awaited him as to relief. There at least he would be safe from the hard, inquisitive eyes which empaled him.

Meanwhile, as they argued back and forth and his fate hung in the balance, he found himself staring at the patch of pale winter sky which showed in the tall window. The air was clean up there. The sky was a n.o.ble, empty place unpolluted by foul breath and villainy and lies!

When Denholm arose to speak for the prisoner, the jury regarded him with curiosity tempered by pity. They liked Denholm, liked his resourcefulness, his una.s.sailable good-humor, his gallant struggle on behalf of a bad cause. Plainly they were wondering what he could say for his client now.

If Denholm felt that his case was hopeless, he gave no sign of it. He was frank, una.s.suming, friendly with the jury. His style of delivery was conversational.

"I will be brief," he said. "I do not mean to take you over the evidence again. Every detail must be more than familiar to you.

"What my learned friend has just said to you, what I say to you now, and what his lordship will presently say to you from the bench all amounts to the same thing--choose for yourselves what you are to believe. Somewhere in this jungle of contradictions lurks the truth.

It is for you to track it down.

"The prisoner's case stands or falls by his own testimony. We have an instinct that warns us to disregard what a man says in his own defense.

In this case we cannot disregard it. I ask you not to consider it as evidence against the prisoner that he has no witnesses.

"If we go over the story in our minds, we will see that under the conditions of these happenings he could not have witnesses. Therefore, if we wish to do justice, we must weigh his own story.

"Never mind the details now, but consider his att.i.tude in telling it.

For an entire session of the court he sat in the witness chair telling us with the most painstaking detail everything that happened from the time of his first arrival at Fort Enterprise up to his arrest.

"During the whole of the following day he was on the stand under a perfect fusillade of questions from my learned friend, admittedly the most brilliant cross-examiner at the bar. He did not succeed in shaking the prisoner's story in any important particular.

"How, I ask you, could the prisoner have foreseen and prepared for all those ingenious traps formulated in the resourceful brain of my learned friend, unless he was telling the simple truth?

"Moreover, the gaps, the inconsistencies, the improbabilities in the story which my friend has pointed out, to my mind these are the strongest evidences of its truth. For if he had made it all up he would be logical. Man's brain works that way.

"Suppose for the sake of argument that the prisoner did accomplish that miracle; that in his brain he formulated a story so complete in every ramification that nine hours' cross-examination could batter no holes in it.

"If that is true, it is a wonderful brain, isn't it? The prisoner, in short, is an amazingly clever young man. Now, can you imagine a man with even the rudiments of good sense persuading himself that he could make a successful Indian uprising at this date? There is a serious--"

Denholm was stopped by a commotion that arose outside the door of the court-room. There was a great throng in the corridor as well. He looked to the bench for aid.

His lordship rapped smartly with his gavel. "Silence!" he cried, "or I will have the room cleared!"

But the noise came nearer.

"Officer, what is the trouble outside?" demanded the bench.

The two doorkeepers with great hands were pressing back a threatened irruption from the corridor. One spoke over his shoulder.

"If you please, sir, there's a young woman here says she has evidence to give in this case."

CHAPTER XL.

AN UNEXPECTED WITNESS.

Those in the court-room jumped up and looked toward the door, and the confusion was redoubled. Several policemen hurried to the a.s.sistance of the doorkeepers. The judge rapped in vain.

Finally one of the doorkeepers made his voice heard above the scuffling:

"She says her name is Colina Gaviller."