A little stir brought him back from final drowsiness. A man in the row ahead of him wanted to get out. The disturber carried an overcoat over his left arm, and it amused Bobby vastly to see the stiff collar of that overcoat rumple the back hair of those who sat in the second row. As he watched, it caught the long oily locks of the witness for the prosecution. With a fierce exclamation the man turned, scowling at the other's whispered excuse. When he had again faced the front, he had rearranged his disturbed locks.
After this slight interruption, Bobby again relapsed into day-dreaming. He fell once more to visualizing the scene of that day. Gradually the court-room faded away. He saw the hillside, the burnt logs on the bare ground, the popples silvery in the sun, the sky blue above the hill. The patch of brown by the rustling scrub oak glimmered before his eyes. He saw again the exact angle it lay above him. For the hundredth time he looked over the sights of the rifle, fair against that spot of brown. "I must have over-shot a foot," he sighed, "or it would have taken him square."
And then as he stared over the sights, his finger on the trigger, the imaginary scene faded, the familiar court-room came out of the mists to take its place. Slowly the brown spot at which he aimed dissolved, a man's head took its place; the oily-haired witness for the prosecution happened now to occupy exactly the position relative to Bobby's attitude as had Mr. Kincaid's cap the day of the murder. And through the slightly disarranged long hair, and exactly in line with the imaginary rifle sights Bobby could just make out a dull red furrow running along the scalp. At this instant, as though uneasy at a scrutiny instinctively felt, the man reached back to smooth his locks. The scar at once disappeared.
XXV
THE HOLE IN THE CAP
For perhaps ten seconds Bobby sat absolutely motionless while a new thought was born. Then, oblivious of surroundings or of the exasperated objections of those near him, he clambered over the rail and wriggled his way to the open aisle. Several tried to seize him, but he managed in some manner to elude them all. Once in the open he darted forward toward the astonished officials. His freckled face was very red, his stubby hair towsled, his gray eyes earnest. The sheriff rose from his seat as though to stop him.
"I want to see that cap!" cried Bobby to the blur in general. He caught sight of it, ran to seize it, looked at it closely, and threw it down with a little cry of triumph. The bullet holes were not both at the top: one perforation was high up; but the other, on the left hand side, was situated low, near the edge. Bobby knew that the man who had worn that cap must have been hit.
The judge's gavel was in the air, the sheriff on his feet, a hundred mouths open to expostulate against this interruption of a grave occasion.
"Mr. Kincaid did not do it!" cried Bobby aloud.