Jeff looked from the open window. Cottonwoods, well watered, give swiftest growth of any trees and are therefore the dominant feature of new communities in dry lands. The courthouse yard was crowded with them: Jeff, from the window, could see nothing but their green plumes; and his thoughts ran naturally upon gardens—or, to be more accurate, upon a garden.
Would she lose faith in him? Had she heard yet? Would he be able to clear himself? No mere acquittal would do. Because of Ellinor, there must be no question, no verdict of Not Proven. She would go East to-morrow. Perhaps she would not hear of his arrest at all. He hoped not. The bank robbery, the murder—yes, she would hear of them, perhaps; but why need she hear his name? Hers was a world so different! He fell into a muse at this.
Deputy Phillips passed and stood close to him, looking down from the window. His back was to Jeff; but, under cover of the confused hum of many voices, he spake low from the corner of his mouth:
“Play your hand close to your bosom, old-timer! Wait for the draw and watch the dealer!” He strolled over to the other side of the judicial bench whence he came.
This vulgar speech betrayed Jimmy as one given to evil courses; but to Jeff that muttered warning was welcome as thunder of Blücher’s squadrons to British squares at Waterloo.
Down the aisle came a procession consciously important—the prosecuting attorney; the bank’s lawyer, who was to assist, “for the people”; and Lake himself. As they passed the gate Jeff smiled his sweetest.
“Hello, Wally!” Lake’s name was Stephen Walter.
Wally made no verbal response; but his undershot jaw did the steel-trap act and there was a triumphant glitter in his eye. He turned his broad back pointedly—and Jeff smiled again.
The justice took his seat on the raised dais intervening between Jeff and the sheriff’s desk. Court was opened. The usual tedious preliminaries followed. Jeff waived a jury trial, refused a lawyer and announced that he would call no witnesses at present.
In an impressive stillness the prosecutor rose for his opening statement. Condensed, it recounted the history of the crime, so far as known; fixed the time by the watchman’s statement—to be confirmed, he said, by another witness, the telephone girl on duty at that hour, who had heard the explosion and the ensuing gunshot; touched upon that watchman’s faithful service and his present desperate condition. He told of the late finding of the injured man, the meeting in the bank, the sum taken by the robber, and the discovery in the bank of the rubber nosepiece, which he submitted as Exhibit A. He cited the witnesses by whom he would prove each statement, and laid special stress upon the fact that the witness Clarke would testify that the nosepiece had been found upon the shattered fragments of the safe door—conclusive proof that it had been dropped after the crime. And he then held forth at some length upon the hand of Providence, as manifested in the unconscious self-betrayal which had frustrated and brought to naught the prisoner’s fiendish designs. On the whole, he spoke well of Providence.