"We went to ther legislature every day, expectin' trouble," he declared, with a full-voiced boastfulness. "And we were ready to weed out the Democratic leaders when it started."
"To what purpose was all that planned?" purred the examining lawyer, and the response capped it with prompt assurance:
"The object was to have a Republican majority before we got through shooting."
"And you were willing to do your part?"
Virtuously boomed the reply: "If it was in fair battle, I was willin', yes, sir."
Saul particularized. He recounted that he had himself nominated Asa as a dependable gun-fighter, and that on the day of the tragedy he had met Asa on the streets of Frankfort. Asa, he asserted, had brazenly displayed a pocketful of cartridges.
"He said to me," proceeded the witness; "'Them ca'tridges comes out of a lot thet's done made hist'ry. Whenever I looks over ther sights of a rifle-gun, I gits me either money or meat, an' this time I've done got me both.'"
Boone Wellver had been leaning tensely forward in his seat as he listened. Here at last, to his own knowledge, the words that were cementing his kinsman's doom were utterly and viciously false. He had been a witness to that meeting, and it had been Saul and not Asa who had seen danger in the possession of cartridges. It had been Saul, too, who had excitedly instructed him to destroy the evidence.
But Saul continued glibly: "Asa had done named ter me, back thar in ther mountains, thet he reckoned him an' ther Governor could swap favours. So when we met up that day in Frankfort, he said, 'Me an' ther Big Man, we got tergether an' done a leetle business.'"
The courtroom was tensely, electrically silent, when a boy rose out of his chair, and with the suddenness of a bursting shell shrilled out in defiance: