Judge Doe had listened to this impassioned speech with much interest, apparently, but without any delay decided that Shinburn and I must be tried together. Asking for a moment in which to consult, Judge Cushion, and Mr. Woodward and the others of Shinburn’s and my counsel drew aside and earnestly discussed the attitude of the court and district attorney. My counsel believed me to be innocent and Shinburn guilty, yet in view of the ultimatum that both must be tried at once, it was a question whether there could be found a way to further fight for separate trials, or, bowing submissively to the ruling, proceed to establish a joint defence in which the innocent and guilty must stand or fall together. “It’s sink or swim, gentlemen!” Judge Cushion told the others at the termination of the conference; and they returned to the tables. Well, when court adjourned that afternoon, a jury to try us had been chosen, Sumner Warren being its foreman, and the preliminaries had been accomplished so that the prosecution was ready to call its witnesses the first thing the next morning. As for my feelings, they had undergone a great change since the convening of the court. All the fear that possessed me after the hearing at which I was denied a separate chance to prove my innocence, was upon me again. The hopefulness of the morning had resolved into the gloom of night. I must fight my way through the great cloud that beset me, handicapped by the case of a man I had no reason to doubt was guilty of the crime with which he stood accused. Linked with a criminal, I must prove my innocence or be convicted a felon. My lawyers said there was no reason for me to feel despondent; that we would win despite all that was pitted against us; that there wasn’t any evidence upon which the jury could possibly base a verdict of guilty, though they might be ever so prejudiced. As to the jury being a fair and well-disposed body of men, Judge Cushion said he had no doubt of that. I took all this as poor comfort, however, and in my hotel that night there was precious little sleep for me. After a long, weary vigil, the dawn came, and with it the nerve-distracting trial, which lasted ten days.