"Oh, you seen it!" repeated Hammer, sweeping the jury a cunning look as if to apprise them that he had found out just what he wanted to know, and that upon that simple admission he was about to turn the villainy of Sol Greening inside out for them to see with their own intelligent eyes. "Yes, I said I seen it," maintained Sol, bristling up a little. "Yes, I heard you say it, and now I want you to tell this jury how you _know_!" Hammer threw the last word into Sol's face with a slam that made him jump. Sol turned red under the whiskers, around the whiskers, and all over the uncovered part of him. He shifted in his chair; he swallowed. "Well, I don't just know," said he. "No, you don't--just--know!" sneered Hammer, glowing in oily triumph. He looked at the jury confidentially, as on the footing of a shrewd man with his equally shrewd audience. Then he took up the old rifle, and Isom's bloody coat and shirt, which were also there as exhibits, and dressed Sol down on all of them, working hard to create the impression in the minds of the jurors that Sol Greening was a born liar, and not to be depended on in the most trivial particular. Hammer worked himself up into a sweat and emitted a great deal of perfume of barberish--and barbarous--character, and glanced around the court-room with triumph in his eyes and satisfaction at the corners of his mouth. He came now to the uncertainty of Sol's memory on the matter of being bidden to enter the kitchen when he knocked. Sol had now passed from doubt to certainty. Come to think it over, said he, nobody had said a word when he knocked at that door. He remembered now that it was as still inside the house as if everybody was away. Mrs. Greening was standing against the wall, having that moment returned to the room from ministering to her daughter's baby. She held the infant in her arms, waiting Sol's descent from the witness-chair so she might settle down in her place without disturbing the proceedings. When she heard her husband make this positive declaration, her mouth fell open and her eyes widened in surprise. "Why Sol," she spoke up reprovingly, "you told me Joe----" It had taken the prosecuting attorney that long to glance around and spring to his feet. There his voice, in a loud appeal to the court for the protection of his sacred rights, drowned that of mild Mrs. Greening. The judge rapped, the sheriff rapped; Captain Taylor, from his post at the door, echoed the authoritative sound. Hammer abruptly ceased his questioning of Sol, after the judge had spoken a few crisp words of admonishment, not directed in particular at Mrs. Greening, but more to the public at large, regarding the decorum of the court. Sam Lucas thereupon took Sol in hand again, and drew him on to replace his former doubtful statement by his later conclusion. As Sol left the witness-chair Hammer smiled. He handed Mrs. Greening's name to the clerk, and requested a subpoena for her as a witness for the defense.