But the attorney knew his business and Morrow remained quietly in his seat beside the sheriff. Having finished his preliminary statement, the young lawyer whispered to the bailiff, who walked across to a small jury room opening off the main courtroom, and opened a door. A low-spoken word, and there stepped from the room a woman--the wife of the prisoner. She was tall, slim and about twenty-five years of age. From the corner of her mouth protruded the "dip-stick," that ever present solace of the sex among her class, and without which she probably never could have faced the crowd. A faded blue calico dress over which she wore a small shawl, and on her head a bedraggled hat with a few tousled roses stuck on one side, made up a costume which only accentuated her drawn face and sorrowful eyes. After a few moments of whispered conversation with the lawyer, she took the witness chair. At first her answers to his questions as to her name, age, etc., were given in a low, scarcely audible voice, and the room was so still it was fairly oppressive. "You understand, do you," he asked her, "that your husband is charged with killing a yearling belonging to Mr. Barker?" "I shore do," was the reply. "Will you, please, tell the jury in your own words, just what you know about this matter," the lawyer said. "Mought I tell it jist as I want to, jist as I done tole it to you down to the hotel?" she asked. "Yes," he replied very kindly, "tell the jury your story just as you told it to me." She carefully removed the "dip stick" from her mouth, placing it in a little wooden box which she carried in a battered leather hand bag. Then, turning to the jury, she began her story in a clear firm voice, as if she realized that upon her testimony hung the fate of her husband. "I want to tell you-all men, the truth about this here thing," she said looking into their faces with unflinching eye, "jist how it happened, an' don't mean to hide narry part of it from nobody. "Andy an' me's been married now nigh onto six year. We moved into this country about a year ago, comin' from Arkin-saw in a wagon. We had two chillen, a boy an' a gal. "When we gits here, Andy located down there on the claim an' tried dry farmin'; 'kaffir korners' I reckin' some of them calls us. It tuck mighty nigh every cent we had to git the seed an' some farmin' tools, an' after the crap were in, Andy he gits work in a sawmill up into the mountings, leavin' me an' the kids to make the crap. "Andy he done built a little loghouse an' a corral, an' puts a brush fence around the land we broke up to keep the critters out, we not havin' any money fer to buy barbed wire fer the fence. [Illustration: "_Andy done built a little ole log house_"] "We had a heap o' trouble with the range stock all summer an' it kep' me a-steppin' pretty lively to keep 'em out, but I managed to fight 'em off, an' we done pretty well that year.