“On the fifteenth day of July last.”
“How did you happen to miss this steer?”
“My attention was called to the fact that an animal answering this description and bearing my brand had been seen under suspicious detention.”
“Prior to information thus received, you were not aware this creature had either strayed away or been stolen?”
“I was not.”
“Who gave you this information, Mr. Langford?”
“George Williston of the Lazy S.”
“Now you may tell the jury in what words Williston told you about the steer he saw.”
This, of course, was objected to and the objection was sustained by the court, as Gordon knew it would be. He only wanted the jury to remember that Williston could have told a damaging story had he been here, and also to remember how mysteriously this same Williston had disappeared. He could not have Williston or Williston’s story, but he might keep an impression ever before these twelve men that there was a story—he knew it and they knew it,—a story of which some crotchet of the law forbade the telling.
“What did you do after your attention had been called to the suspicious circumstances of the steer’s detention?”