Jeffrey Whiting had gotten promises from many of the owners that they would not sell or even sign any paper until such time as he gave them the word. Did those promises bind the people to him? They did. Did they have the 228 same effect as if Jeffrey Whiting had obtained actual options on the property? Yes. Would the people stand by their promises? Yes. Then Whiting had actually been obtaining what were really options to himself, while pretending to hold the people back in their own interest? Yes.
The prosecutor went on to draw out answer after answer tending to show that it was not really a conflict between the people and the railroad that had been making trouble in the hills all summer; that it was, in fact, merely a personal struggle for influence and gain between Jeffrey Whiting and the man who had been killed. It was skilfully done and drawn out with all the exaggerated effect of truth which bald negative and affirmative answers invariably carry.
He went on to show that a bitter hatred had grown up between the two men. Rogers had been accused of hiring men to get Whiting out of the way at a time in the early summer when many of the people about French Village had been prepared to sign Rogers’ options. Rogers had been obliged to fly from the neighbourhood on account of Whiting’s anger. He had not returned to the hills until the day before he was killed.
The people in the hills had talked freely of what had happened on Bald Mountain on the morning of August twentieth and in the hills during the afternoon and night preceding. The prosecutor knew the incidents and knew what men 229 had said to each other. He now called Myron Stocking.
“Did you meet Jeffrey Whiting on the afternoon of August nineteenth?” was the question.
“I went lookin’ for him, to tell––”
“Answer, yes or no?” shouted the attorney.
“Yes,” the witness admitted sullenly.
“Did you tell him that Rogers was in the hills?”
“Yes.”