"Well," grumbled Pecos, "if I was guilty I'd sure plead 'Guilty,' you can bank on that. But this blankety-blank, Ike Crittenden, has jest framed up a lot of evidence to railroad me to the pen—and them cowboys of his would swear to anything for the drinks. You wouldn't soak a man on evidence like that, would you, Mr. District Attorney?"
"I'd soak him on any evidence I could get," responded the district attorney succinctly. "You know my reputation, Mr. Dalhart—I convict every man that pleads 'Not guilty'!"
"But s'pose he isn't guilty!" cried Pecos.
"I convict him anyway!" replied the district attorney. "Are you going to sign this, or are you going ahead like a damned fool and get the limit in Yuma?"
"I won't sign it," said Pecos firmly.
"Very well," responded Kilkenny, closing his little book with a snap. He rose to his full height and pursed his lips ominously. "Very well, Mr. Dalhart!" he said, nodding and blinking his eyes. "Very well, sir!" Then he retired, leaving so much unsaid that it threw Pecos into a panic. In a very real picture he could see himself sitting in the shade of a big adobe wall and making State's-prison bridles for life. He could see the guards pacing back and forth on top of the bastions and Pete Monat holding one end of a horse-hair strand while he swung a little trotter and twisted the loose hairs into the other end, forever and forever. It was awful. The full sense of his impending doom rushed in upon him and he laid hold of the sodden Babe who was maundering about the revolution, and shook him frantically.
"My God, Angy," he cried, "wake up and do something! Fergit about the common people and do something for me! Fergit that you ever had any principles and he'p me fight that low-lived dastard or I'll go to Yuma for life!"
"The voice of the people shall rule in the land!" pronounced Angy oracularly.
"To hell with the people!" yelled Pecos. "It's the People that's tryin' to send me up! Do you want me to git twelve years for brandin' that spotted calf? Well, wake up, then, and git yore wits to work!"
Angy woke up, by degrees, but his wits would not work. The ecstasy of intoxication was past and his mind was a legal blank for the remainder of that day. The day was Friday, and Pecos had to plead on Monday—"Guilty" or "Not guilty." "Guilty" meant six or eight years in prison; "Not guilty" meant twelve years—or freedom. It was a gamble, but he would risk it if Angy would remain sober enough to talk. His only chance of freedom lay in his friend's misdirected eloquence, and when Babe was entirely himself Pecos backed him up into a corner and talked to him with tears in his voice.