Turning to the magistrate, I said: “You telegraph, at my expense, the Minister of Justice at Ottawa that this man,” pointing to the superintendent, “is trying to incite these miners to lynch me. And I want a copy of the telegram and my request made a matter of record in your office.”
The magistrate looked confused. The superintendent said, “I’ll make the complaint. I want this man held.” The constable arrested me “In the queen’s name,” searched me and locked me in the town jail, a one-room affair in a lot back of his house. He brought me blankets and supper, and left me to meditate in silence and privacy. I went over everything again. The shoe was on the other foot this time; they hadn’t a thing on me. No court in Christendom would convict me on those shreds of suspicion. I rolled up in the blankets and went to sleep with the comfortable thought that the forty-eight hundred dollars might help me to forget the awful lashing I took at New Westminster when I got to San Francisco or Chicago with them.
Next morning in court it was shown by witnesses that I was at the depot twice when the money arrived; that I went to the mine once on the same train with it; and a woman testified that she saw me walking behind the station agent and his neighbors as they went home the night of the burglary. The porter who spilled the beans finished the trial by testifying that he met me on the stairs in the early morning; that I was nervous, acted suspiciously, and tried to avoid him.
I made no defense, but set up a loud and long protest that did no good. I was held for trial and whisked away to the provincial jail. I was convinced that the mine superintendent had engineered the thing on the theory that I was guilty and in hopes that something would transpire in his favor while I was waiting to be tried.
The provincial jail was like the one I escaped from. The jailer was sober and decent, giving me plenty of books and fair treatment. I had a cell to myself, kept away from the other prisoners, tried my case mentally every day, and got acquitted every time, and at night I spent large chunks of the payroll that was so securely planted in the post hole.
After three months of leisure, reading and pleasant anticipations, I went to court. A judge had arrived for the fall assizes and mine was the only felony case. The witnesses were all there. I pleaded not guilty and my case was set for trial at two o’clock in the afternoon. The judge asked if I had counsel. I told him I had no lawyer and didn’t want one; that I had but little money and would need it when I was acquitted.
“Better get counsel,” he snapped. “A defendant that tries his own case has a fool for a lawyer.”
I replied by asking him to read the testimony from the lower court before wasting his time trying me.
While I was eating dinner the mine superintendent came to my cell and said if I would give up the money I could go free. I threatened to sue him for false imprisonment when I got out. He went away mad. I decided they wanted me to get a local lawyer in hopes I would unbosom myself to him so he could do the same with them.
At two o’clock I was back in court. The judge was a brusque, businesslike little old man with the brisk, aggressive air of a terrier. His hair was clipped short and his cropped beard grew in every direction. He wore a coarse suit of tweeds, hobnailed shoes, and a cheap flannel shirt, with a linen collar and no tie. He had two sheets of paper in his hand, looking at them.