“Know Mag? Swear to Mag? Dick, I would know Mag ef I met him on the golden streets of the eternal city or ef my eyes was full o’ soundin’ cataracts! Yep.”
“I am not asking such an impossible feat, Mr. Munson,” cut in Gordon, nettled by the digressions of one of his most important witnesses. “Answer briefly, please. Would you be willing to swear?”
Jim was jerked back to the beaten track by the sharp incision of Gordon’s rebuke. No, this was indeed not Jimmie Mac’s court.
“Yep,” he answered, shortly.
Billy Brown was called. After the preliminary questions, Gordon said to him:
“Now, Mr. Brown, please tell the jury how you came into possession of the steer.”
“Well, I was shippin’ a couple o’ car loads to Sioux City, and I was drivin’ the bunch myself with a couple o’ hands when I meets up with Jesse Black here. He was herdin’ a likely little bunch o’ a half dozen or so—among ’em this spotted feller. He said he wasn’t shippin’ any this Fall, but these were for sale—part of a lot he had bought from Yellow Wolf. So the upshot of the matter was, I took ’em off his hands. I was just lackin’ ’bout that many to make a good, clean, two cars full.”
“You took a bill-of-sale for them, of course, Mr. Brown?”
“I sure did. I’m too old a hand to buy without a bill-o’-sale.”
The document was produced, marked as an exhibit, and offered in evidence.