There was another and far more potent reason why it was unfortunate for Jeffrey Whiting that Samuel Rogers had died within the lines of Racquette County. The Judge who sat upon the bench was the same man who only a few weeks before had pleaded so unctuously before the Senate committee for the rights of the downtrodden U. & M. Railroad against the lawless people of the hills. He had given the District Attorney every possible assistance toward the selection of a jury who would be at least thoughtful of the interests of the railroad. For this was not merely a murder trial. It was the case of the people of the hills against the U. & M. Railroad.
Racquette County was a “railroad” county. The life of every one of its rising villages depended absolutely upon the good will of the railroad system that had spread itself beneficently over the county and that had given it a prosperity beyond that of any other county of the North. Racquette County owed a great deal to the railroad, and it was not in the disposition or the plans of the railroad to leave the county in a position where it might forget the debt. So the railroad saw to it that only men personally known to its officials should have public office in the county. It had put this judge upon this bench. And the railroad was no niggard to its servants. It paid him well for the very timely and valuable services which he was able to render it.
The grip which the railroad corporation had upon the life of Racquette County was so complex and varied that it extended to every money-making affair in the community. It was an intangible but impenetrable mesh of interests and influences that extended in every direction and crossed and intercrossed so that no man could tell where it ended. But all men could surely tell that these lines of influence ran from all ends of the county into the hand of the attorney for the railroad in Alden and that from his hand they passed on into the hands of the single great man in New York whose money and brain dominated the whole transportation business of the State. All men knew, too, that those lines passed through the Capitol at Albany and that no man there, from the Executive down to the youngest page in the legislative corridors, was entirely immune from their influence.
Now the U. & M. Railroad had been openly charged with having procured the setting of the fire that had left five hundred hill people homeless in Tupper and Adirondack Counties. It would, of course, be impossible to bring the railroad to trial on such a charge in any county of the State. The company had really nothing to fear in the way of criminal prosecution. But the matter had touched the temper and roused the suspicions of the great, headless body called the public. The railroad felt that it must not be silent under even 214 a muttered and vague charge of such nature. It must strike first, and in a spectacular manner. It must divert the public mind by a counter charge.
Before the rain had come down to wet the ashes of the fire, the Grand Jury of Racquette County had been prepared to find an indictment against Jeffrey Whiting for the murder of Samuel Rogers. They had found that Samuel Rogers was an agent of the railroad engaged upon a peaceable and lawful journey through the hills in the interests of his company. He had been found shot through the back of the head and the circumstances surrounding his death were of such a nature and disposition as to warrant the finding of a bill against the young man who for months had been leading a stubborn fight against the railroad.
The case had been advanced over all others on the calendar in Judge Leslie’s court, for the railroad was determined to occupy the mind of the public with this case until the people should have had time to forget the sensation of the fire. The mind at the head of the railroad’s affairs argued that the mind of the public could hold only one thing at a time. Therefore it was better to put this murder case into that mind and keep it there until some new thing should arise.
The celerity with which Jeffrey Whiting had been brought to trial; the well-oiled smoothness with which the machinery of the Grand Jury had done its work, and the efficient way in which judge 215 and prosecuting attorney had worked together for the selection of what was patently a “railroad” jury, were all evidence that a strong and confident power was moving its forces to an assured and definite end. This judge and this jury would allow no confusion of circumstances to stand in the way of a clear-cut verdict. The fact that the man had been caught in the act of setting fire to the forests, if the Judge allowed it to appear in the record at all, would not stand with the jury as justification, or even extenuation of the deed of murder charged. The fate of the accused must hang solely on the question of fact, whether or not his hand had fired the fatal shot. No other question would be allowed to enter.
And on that question it seemed that the minds of all men were already made up. The prisoner’s friends and associates in the hills had been at first loud in their commendation of the act which they had no doubt was his. Now, though they talked less and less, they still did not deny their belief. It was known that they had congratulated him on the very scene of the murder. What room was there in the mind of any one for doubt as to the actual facts of the killing? And since his conviction or acquittal must hinge on that single question, what room was there to hope for his acquittal?
The hill people had come down from their ruined homes, where they had been working night 216 and day to put a roof over their families before the cold should come. They were bitter and sullen and nervous. They had no doubt whatever that Jeffrey Whiting had killed the man, and they had been forced to come down here to tell what they knew––every word of which would count against them. They had come down determined that he should not suffer for his act, which had been done, as it were, in the name of all of them. But the rapid certainty in which the machinery of the law moved on toward its sacrifice unnerved them. There was nothing for them to do, it seemed, but to sit there, idle and glum, waiting for the end.