“Course I don't read the Bible an' preach the word, nor talk with sperits, but thar's worse men than me in the world—old Red in thar' for instance”; and then he would cackle like a fiend and the Red Fox would writhe in torment and beg to be sent to another cell. And always he would daily ask the Red Fox about his trial and ask him questions in the night, and his devilish instinct told him the day that the Red Fox, too, was sentenced to death—he saw it in the gray pallour of the old man's face, and he cackled his glee like a demon. For the evidence against the Red Fox was too strong. Where June sat as chief witness against Rufe Tolliver—John Hale sat as chief witness against the Red Fox. He could not swear it was a cartridge shell that he saw the old man pick up, but it was something that glistened in the sun, and a moment later he had found the shell in the old man's pocket—and if it had been fired innocently, why was it there and why was the old man searching for it? He was looking, he said, for evidence of the murderer himself. That claim made, the Red Fox's lawyer picked up the big rifle and the shell.
“You say, Mr. Hale, the prisoner told you the night you spent at his home that this rifle was rim-fire?”
“He did.” The lawyer held up the shell.
“You see this was exploded in such a rifle.” That was plain, and the lawyer shoved the shell into the rifle, pulled the trigger, took it out, and held it up again. The plunger had struck below the rim and near the centre, but not quite on the centre, and Hale asked for the rifle and examined it closely.
“It's been tampered with,” he said quietly, and he handed it to the prosecuting attorney. The fact was plain; it was a bungling job and better proved the Red Fox's guilt. Moreover, there were only two such big rifles in all the hills, and it was proven that the man who owned the other was at the time of the murder far away. The days of brain-storms had not come then. There were no eminent Alienists to prove insanity for the prisoner. Apparently, he had no friends—none save the little old woman in black who sat by his side, hour by hour and day by day.
And the Red Fox was doomed.
In the hush of the Court Room the Judge solemnly put to the gray face before him the usual question:
“Have you anything to say whereby sentence of death should not be pronounced on you?”
The Red Fox rose:
“No,” he said in a shaking voice; “but I have a friend here who I would like to speak for me.” The Judge bent his head a moment over his bench and lifted it: