Years before, one of his father’s cowhands had been cornered by a grizzly in the Snake River valley south of the Yellowstone. The man had raised his rifle to fire, and the rifle had jammed. Otis, then a boy, had been one of the party which had found the torn and mutilated body, with the jammed rifle by its side.
Now he knew how the cow-hand must have felt at the instant the rifle jammed, with the towering grizzly approaching. For he, Otis, was left helpless before the blind fury of the law.
Sheriff Ogden had returned to Jackson an hour after his chief deputy had led Otis to his cell.
“Yep, Gus Bernat’s dead as a doornail,” he announced with some evidence of sympathy. “Between you and me, looks like you’re outa luck.”
Otis shrugged, and tried to smile.
“It can’t be helped,” he replied. “Guess things aren’t breaking my way.”
An embarrassing pause was broken by the Sheriff, who began:
“Say, Otis—are you goin’ to say anything about bein’ left handcuffed to that tree?”
“I don’t see why it’s necessary,” Otis replied. “Why?”
“I was just thinking,” Ogden went on, “that maybe I could throw a few favors your way that might help a lot when it comes time for the trial. I wish you’d just forget about that part of it, if you can. I don’t suppose you tried to advertise the fact that you was wearin’ handcuffs when you rode into town. Everybody knows you was caught in the flood, and that you came in and gave yourself up. It was mighty white of you, because I know you could have made a clean get-away. It took us longer than we thought to trail Radley, and he got away. But no one knows about the handcuff part except you and me and the boys in the office—and they’ll keep their mouths shut.”