"What do you know about my client, whom you are all conspiring to ruin?" exclaimed the excited lawyer, turning fiercely on the interposing hunter.
"Know about him?" retorted the other. "I know enough, besides this outrageous affair; I know enough to—"
"Beware!" suddenly exclaimed Gaut Gurley, with a look that brought the speaker to a stand.
"I don't fear you, sir," said the hunter, confronting the other with an unflinching countenance. "But you may be right; it may be I had better forbear; it may be your time is not yet come," he added, in a low, significant tone.
"Now, I will finish with you, sir," resumed Gaut's lawyer, turning again sternly to Elwood, from whom he—like many other over-acting attorneys, who cannot see where they should stop in examinations of this kind—seemed to think he could draw something more that would make for his client. "When that fellow interrupted me, just now, I was asking what reason, besides some grudge or malice, you had for your unwarrantable course in pronouncing the respondent guilty, without proof; for, allowing the furs you swear to were once yours, you don't show, by a single particle of proof, that he had any thing to do with it more than yourselves, who were quite as likely to have taken them as he. Yes, what reasons,—facts, facts, I mean; no more guess-work here; so speak out, sir, like an honest man, if you can."
"I will, then," promptly responded Elwood. "You shall have facts, to your heart's content; I said what I did because I am convinced he is guilty."
"Convinced!" sneeringly interrupted the other; "there it is again; thrusting in sheer conjectures for evidence! I must call on the court to interpose with the stubborn and wilful fellow. Didn't I tell you, sir, I'd have no more of your guess-work? Facts, sir, facts, or nothing."
"Well, you shall have them, then," replied the other, in a determined tone, "for I know enough facts to convince me, at least, of his guilt. Both before and after we started on our expedition, he threw out hints to me which I did not then quite understand, but which, since this affair, I have recalled, and now know what they meant. He hinted, if I would fall into his plan and keep council, we might—"
"Might what?" sharply demanded the excited and alarmed attorney. "Do you know you are under oath, sir? Might what, I say?"
"Might get all the furs into our hands, and—"