"That is a view which the jury evidently could not take."
"Juries are often wooden-headed."
"Of course—in the eyes of superior people."
"Now don't you try to be satirical—it's not your specialty. I mean to finish the tale. If you read the paper, you will recall that the shanty where the murder occurred was only a short distance from the mountain-road, and there were three witnesses—Bill Metzger, a dissolute cowboy who was passing, and who, attracted by Wofford's death-cry, ran to the cabin and found Boyd, blood-stained knife in hand, bending over the murdered man; Ed Thorpe, a tramp miner, who heard the same cry and who came up two or three minutes later; and, finally, Tim Williams, a town idler, who was on the mountain-side, hunting. The other two heard him fire his gun a few hundred yards away, and called to him. When he arrived, Boyd was still dazed and muttering to himself, as if overpowered by the horror of his crime."
"If that isn't conclusive, then nothing is," said Harley, decisively.
"It is not conclusive; there was no real motive for Boyd to do such a thing."
"To whom did the knife belong?"
"It was a long bread-knife that the two used at the cabin."
"There you are! Proof on proof!"
"Now, you keep silent, Harley, and come with me, like a good fellow, and see Boyd in the jail. If you don't, I swear I'll pester the life out of you for a week."