The door in the rear of the bar opened and Judge Dale entered. A comparative quiet fell upon the people. He mounted to his high bench. The clerk came in, then the court reporter. She tossed her note books on the table, leisurely pulled off her gloves and took her place, examining the ends of her pencils with a critical eye. It would be a busy day for the “gal reporter.” Then Langford came shoving his way down the crowded aisle with a sad-faced, brown-eyed, young woman in his wake, who yet held herself erect with a proud little tilt to her chin. There was not an empty seat outside the bar. Louise motioned, and he escorted Mary to a place within and sat down beside her. The jurymen were all in their chairs. Presently came in Gordon with his quiet, self-reliant manner. Langford had been right. The County Attorney was not tired to-day. Shortly after Gordon came Small—Small, the dynamic, whose explosives had so often laid waste the weak and abortive independent reasoning powers of “Old Necessity” and his sort, and were the subject of much satire and some admiration when the legal fraternity talked “shop.” As he strode to his place, he radiated bombs of just and telling wrath. He scintillated with aggressiveness. With him came Jesse Black, easy and disdainful as of old. After them, a small man came gliding in with as little commotion as if he were sliding over the floor of a waxed dancing hall in patent-leather pumps. He was an unassuming little man with quick, cat-like movements which one lost if one were not on the alert. When he had slipped into a chair next to his associate, Small, the inflammable Small, towered above him head and shoulders. “Every inch the criminal,” audibly observed a stranger, an Englishman over to invest in lands for stocking a horse ranch. “Strange how they always wear the imprint on their faces. No escaping it. I fancy that is what the Scriptures meant by the mark of Cain.” The remark was addressed to no one in particular, but it reached the ears of Jim Munson, who was standing near. “Good Lord, man!” he said, with a grin, “that’s the plumb smartest criminal lawyer in the hull county. That’s a fac’. Lord, Lord! Him Jesse Black?” His risibilities continued to thus get the better of his gravity at frequent intervals during the day. He never failed to snort aloud in pure delight whenever he thought of it. What a tale for the boys when he could get to them! “These cattle men!” This time the tenderfoot communicated with himself—he had a square chin and a direct eye; there were possibilities in him. “Their perverted sense of the ridiculous is diabolical.” There were others who did not know the little man. He hailed from the southern part of the State. But Gordon knew him. He knew he was pitted against one of the sharpest, shrewdest men of his day. “Gentlemen, I think we are ready,” said the Judge, and the game was on again. The State called Paul Langford, its principal witness in default of Williston.