"Ay, that have I!" gasped Bob.
"And how came that?" continued his questioner.
"How it came? You must ask the devil, or Johnny. No, not Johnny, he can tell you nothing; he was not there. No one can tell you but me; and I hardly know how it was. The man was at Johnny's, and Johnny showed me his belt full of money."
"Johnny!" exclaimed several of the jury.
"Ay, Johnny! He reckoned on winning it from him, but the man was too cautious for that; and when Johnny had plucked all my feathers, won my twenty dollars fifty"——
"Twenty dollars fifty cents," interposed the judge, "which I paid him for catching mustangs and shooting game."
The men nodded.
"And then because he wouldn't play, you shot him?" asked the same deep-toned voice as before.
"No—some hours after—by the Jacinto, near the Patriarch—met him down there and killed him."
"Thought there was something out o' the common thereaway," said one of the jury; "for as we rode by the tree a whole nation of kites and turkey buzzards flew out. Didn't they, Mr Heart?"