Her voice was raised as she spoke the last few words, and she threw her head back, and swept a look of defiance around the courtroom.
Directly before her sat old man Barker, his eyes staring straight into hers, his great hairy hands gripping a red bandana until the cords and veins stood out like ropes, while down his face the tears were making their way through the rough stubbly beard that covered it without any effort on his part to stay their course. Barker moved uneasily in his chair; in the tense stillness of the room its creaking smote the silence like a shot and drew every eye in the room to him. He grasped the back of the chair in front of him, struggled partly to his feet, and then sank back again. His mouth opened; he licked his parched lips like some hunted wild animal.
"The, the—gal," he gasped, never taking his eyes from the woman's face, "the little gal, wh—what come of her?" he demanded hoarsely, a great something in his throat almost choking him, "did-did-sh-he," and his voice failed him completely.
The woman smiled scornfully. "She did not," she said, realizing the drift of his unspoken question, "we done made a pot of soup out of some of that there yearlin' an' fed her some of the meat, an' she perked up an' come through all right." Then—daughter of Eve that she was—she broke down and burst into tears.
Over the face of the old cattleman swept a look of joy and relief that words cannot portray. He mopped his flushed face and streaming eyes with the handkerchief, utterly unconscious that every eye in the courtroom was upon him, then, turning, brought his great hand down upon the back of his foreman beside him with force enough to have almost broken it. His face was wreathed in smiles. "Glory be," he almost shouted, "glory be—thank God for that."
Five minutes later Stutterin' Andy walked out of the courtroom a free man.
[THE PASSING OF BILL JACKSON]
By permission The Argonaut, San Francisco, Cal.