There was no use trying to do anything before the grand jury, so everybody said; that great bulwark of the people generally indicted every one that the district attorney shook his finger at and let the judge find out later whether he was innocent—that was his business, anyway. Besides—whatever else he did—Pecos was going to be careful not to offend the district attorney. The sad case of Pete Monat, who must have put in an awful summer at Yuma, was ever in his mind, and while he would not go so far as to plead guilty in order to accommodate the choleric Mr. Kilkenny, he was firmly resolved not to antagonize him in the trial. He had money, too—five months' wages, deposited with the sheriff—but a hundred and fifty dollars would not hire a man who could stand up against District Attorney Kilkenny, the terror of evil-doers. As a man, Shepherd Kilkenny was all right—a devoted husband, a loving father, all the other good things you read on a gravestone—but as a prosecuting attorney he was a devil. At every biennial election he got all the votes there were on his court record. He convicted everybody—except a few whose friends had worked a rabbit's foot for them—and convicted them beyond appeal. That saved money to the county. His reputation for convictions was so great that most of the petty criminals pled guilty and came down like Davey Crockett's coon, before he had a chance to shoot. That expedited the court calendar and saved thousands of dollars in fees and witness expenses—another good thing for the honest tax-payer. In fact, everything that Shepherd Kilkenny did was for the benefit of the Geronimo tax-payers, and Yuma was crowded with convicts to prove that he knew his business. That was what he was hired for—to convict law-breakers—and if he let a single guilty man escape he was recreant to his trust. Kilkenny had a stern sense of civic responsibility—he got them, if it took a leg.