“Along toward the first of last July, I took a hike out into the Indian country to buy a few head o’ cattle. I trade considerable with the half-breeds around Crow Creek and Lower Brule. They’re always for sellin’ and if it comes to a show-down never haggle much about the lucre—it all goes for snake-juice anyway. Well, I landed at John Yellow Wolf’s shanty along about noon and found there was others ahead o’ me. Yellow Wolf always was a popular cuss. There was Charlie Nightbird, Pete Monroe, Jesse Big Cloud, and two or three others whose mugs I did not happen to be onto. After our feed, we all strolled out to the corral. Yellow Wolf said he had bought a likely little bunch from some English feller who was skipping the country—starved out and homesick—and hadn’t put ’em on the range yet. He said J R was the English feller’s brand. I didn’t suspicion no underhand dealin’s. Yellow Wolf’s always treated me white before, so I bargained for this here chap and three or four others and then pulled out for home driving the bunch. They fed at home for a spell and then I decided to put ’em on the range. On the way I fell in with Billy Brown here. He was dead set on havin’ the lot to fill in the chinks of the two carloads he was shippin’, so I up and lets him have ’em. I showed him this here bill-o’-sale from Yellow Wolf and made him out one from me, and that was all there was to it. He rode on to Velpen, and I turned on my trail.”
It was a straight story, and apparently damaging for the prosecution. It corroborated the attestations of other witnesses—many others. It had a plausible ring to it. Two bills of sale radiated atmospheric legality. If there had been dirty work, it must have originated with that renegade half-breed, Yellow Wolf. And Yellow Wolf was dead. He had died while serving a term in the penitentiary for cattle-rustling. Uncle Sam himself had set the seal upon him—and now he was dead. This insinuated charge he could not answer. The finality of it seemed to set its stamp upon the people gathered there—upon the twelve good men and true, as well as upon others. Yellow Wolf was dead. George Williston was dead. Their secrets had died with them. An inscrutable fate had lowered the veil. Who could pierce it? One might believe, but who could know? And the law required knowledge.
“We will call Charlie Nightbird,” said Small, complacently.
There was a little waiting silence—a breathless, palpitating silence.
“Is Charlie Nightbird present?” asked Small, casting rather anxious eyes over the packed, intent faces. Charlie Nightbird was not present. At least he made no sign of coming forward. The face of the young counsel for the State was immobile during the brief time they waited for Charlie Nightbird—whose dark, frozen face was at that moment turned toward the cold, sparkling sky, and who would never come, not if they waited for him till the last dread trump of the last dread day.
There was some mistake. Counsel had been misinformed. Nightbird was an important witness. He had been reported present. Never mind. He was probably unavoidably detained by the storm. They would call Jesse Big Cloud and others to corroborate the defendant’s statements—which they did, and the story was sustained in all its parts, major and minor. Then the defence rested.
Richard Gordon arose from his chair. His face was white. His lean jaws were set. His eyes were steel. He was anything but a lover now, this man Gordon. Yet the slim little court reporter with dark circles of homesickness under her eyes had never loved him half so well as at this moment. His voice was clear and deliberate.
“Your honor, I ask permission of the Court to call a witness in direct testimony. I assure your honor that the State had used all efforts in its power to obtain the presence of this witness before resting its case, but had failed and believed at the time that he could not be produced. The witness is now here and I consider his testimony of the utmost importance in this case.”
Counsel for the defendant objected strenuously, but the Court granted the petition. He wanted to hear everything that might throw some light on the dark places in the evidence.
“I call Mr. George Williston,” said Gordon.