The import of the verdict was unmistakable. It meant that, for the second time, the people of Allegheny County, speaking through their representatives in the jury box, refused to be governed by the letter of the law in the matter of punishing the men of Homestead as rioters and murderers, and that the continuance of the prosecutions would be a waste of time, energy and money. Such was the construction generally put upon it, and most probably the Carnegie Company and its counsel formed the same judgment. Nevertheless, the district attorney announced that every one of the Homestead cases would be brought to trial and as an earnest of sincerity, Hugh O'Donnell was brought forward to face a jury of his peers on February 13, the fifth day after Clifford's safe deliverance. The young leader looked pale and thin as a result of his imprisonment, but his eye was as clear and his voice as firm as on the day when he marshaled the fighting men at the barricades, and there was no sign of flinching in his demeanor as he stood up to enter his plea of "not guilty." The attorneys engaged in the case were the same that served in the preceding trials, excepting that Major E. A. Montooth and Mr. John F. Cox relieved the counsel who had previously taken the most active part for the defense. The following jurors were selected: Fred Vogel, William Richardson, Charles Beuchler, John Sproul, M. J. Byrne, Henry Brooker, A. C. Flood, Henry Eisenhauer, John McGann, John Geisler, Peter Stragen and William Dramble. The case for the prosecution differed little from that advanced against Clifford and Critchlow. Pinkerton detectives, sheriff's deputies, mill clerks and reporters repeated the old, old story of the events of July 6, while Mr. D. F. Patterson, who conducted the direct examination as a substitute for the district attorney, elicited from each statements showing O'Donnell's ostensible participation in the battle. The line of cross-examination pursued by the defense showed that the intention was to prove that O'Donnell was present at the battle as a newspaper correspondent, and that, when he interfered actively, it was in the capacity of a peacemaker. Several newspaper men testified that the defendant was known as a correspondent of the Tri-State News Bureau and of various daily papers, and that, in a spirit of professional fraternity, he had taken care of the reporters during the fight and secured for them a convenient headquarters of observation in the cupola of the mill. Only one out of a dozen reporters examined specifically incriminated O'Donnell, and the evidence of that one was vitiated by the knowledge that he had sold out to the Carnegie Company at the beginning of the Homestead trouble and had acted throughout as a spy. The prosecution could not have made a weaker showing, all things considered, and the work of the other side was, therefore, comparatively easy.