Skeeter turned to Freel.
“Mind swearin’t’ tell the truth, sheriff?”
Freel walked to the witness chair, while his deputy edged in beside Skeeter Bill.
“Sheriff,” said Skeeter Bill slowly, “Cleve Hart had a six-gun in his hand when he died. Did you see that gun?”
“Yes.”
“Had it been fired?”
“Once,” nodded Freel. “There was one empty shell.”
“Tha’s all,” said Skeeter, and turned to the judge. “Yuh can only hang a man f’r murder, judge; and it ain’t exactly murder when the other feller shoots too. Ain’t it sort of a question as t’ who shot first?”
The prosecutor jumped to his feet and objected at the top of his voice, but the judge turned a deaf ear to him as he instructed the jury.
Skeeter Bill expected little from those twelve hard-faced cattlemen as they filed out into the jury room to decide his fate. The judge had explained the difference between first and second degree murder, and had dwelt upon the possibility of self-defense, but Skeeter felt that the jury were in no mood to argue among themselves.