Had the strain crazed him? Louise covered her eyes with her hands. Men sat as if dazed. And thus, the cynosure of all eyes—stupefied eyes—Williston of the ravaged Lazy S, thin and worn but calm, natural and scholarly-looking as of old—walked from the little ante-room at the side into the light and knowledge of men once more and raised his hand for the oath. Not until this was taken and he had sat quietly down in the witness chair did the tension snap. Even then men found it difficult to focus their attention on the enormous difference this new witness must make in the case that a few moments before had seemed settled.
Mary sat with shining eyes in the front row of wooden chairs. It was no wonder she had laughed and been so gay all the dreary yesterday and all the worse to-day. Louise shot her a look of pure gladness.
Small’s face was ludicrous in its drop-jawed astonishment. The little lawyer’s face was a study. A look of defiance had crept into the defendant’s countenance.
The preliminary questions were asked and answered.
“Mr. Williston, you may state where you were and what you saw on the fourteenth day of July last.”
Williston, the unfortunate gentleman and scholar, the vanquished cowman, for a brief while the most important man in the cow country, perhaps, was about to uncover to men’s understanding the dark secret hitherto obscured by a cloud of supposition and hearsay. He told the story of his visit to the island, and he told it well. It was enough. Gordon asked no further questions regarding that event.
“And now, Mr. Williston, you may tell what happened to you on the night of the thirtieth of last August.”
Williston began to tell the story of the night attack upon the Lazy S, when the galvanic Small jumped to his feet. The little lawyer touched him with a light hand.
“Your honor,” he said, smoothly, “I object to that as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, and not binding on the defendant.”
“Your honor,” interrupted Gordon, with great calmness, “we intend to show you before we get through that this testimony is competent, and that it is binding upon the defendant.”