"I ain't a-going to tell. I've said that twice already, Mr. Turner, so you needn't ask me. Well, I waited in the hall there, standing mighty quiet. I seen Thomas at the table and a fat gen'l'man over near the window with the sheriff here. I didn't know he was the sheriff then. By and by a boy come in and the sheriff went out. Then all at once Bud Walton run in at the door and pulled a gun. And then I let him have it. I plugged him square. Couldn't miss at that distance. What'd you say, judge? No; nobody seen me. I run out into the lot back of the Fashion and got on my horse. I've been at the Kingdom most of the time since, but I wasn't trying to hide out. How did you find out, Mr. Johnson?"
The audience in the court-room listened to this recital with scant sympathy. Their disapproval was obvious. Even the sheriff appeared a trifle ashamed of his prisoner.
"Did you have any other reason, Terry, for shooting this man?" asked the coroner.
"No, sir. He done run me off, and I was afraid he would kill me some day, the same as he'd done to a lot of others. So I plugged him—there in the Fashion."
"It's a lie. He's lying, judge," cried a treble voice at the door.
The crowd wavered and split apart, and a woman broke through and confronted the coroner. It was Tilly, the waitress at the annex. Her hair was disordered and hung in lank wisps about her face, but she gave no thought to that. With her red arms bare to the elbow, and her cheeks flabby and pale from fright, she took position squarely in front of Turner. She tried to speak, but gasped for breath.
CHAPTER XI
A WAITRESS TO THE RESCUE
"Order in the court!" shouted the coroner.