"No." This was said with some positiveness. The mail-carrier evidently intended to tell the truth. Cartwright turned quickly with a snarl like that of a dog suddenly goaded into a fight. "How can you swear, then, that the prisoner made the assault?" The little man changed color and stammered out in excuse: "He was as big as him, anyway, and there ain't no other like him nowhere in them parts." "Oh, he was as _big_ as him, was he?" This retort came with undisguised contempt. "And there are no others like him, eh? Do you know _everybody_ in Bell County, Mr. Bowditch?" The mail-carrier did not answer. Cartwright waited until the discomfiture of the witness could be felt by the jury, dismissed him with a wave of his hand, and, looking over the room, beckoned to an old man seated by a girl--the same couple he had been talking to before his appointment by the Court--and said in a loud voice: "Will Mr. Perkins Tilden take-the stand?" At the mention of his father's name, Bud, who had maintained throughout his indifferent attitude, straightened himself erect in his chair with so quick a movement that the deputy edged a foot nearer and instinctively slid his hand to his hip-pocket. A lean, cadaverous, painfully thin old man in answer to his name rose to his feet and edged his way through the crowd to the witness-chair. He was an inch taller than his son, though only half his weight, and was dressed in a suit of cheap cloth of the fashion of long ago, the coat too small for him, even for his shrunken shoulders, and the sleeves reaching only to his wrists. As he took his seat, drawing in his long legs toward his chair, his knee-bones, under the strain, seemed to be on the point of coming through his trousers. His shoulders were bowed, the incurve of his thin stomach following the line of his back. As he settled back in his chair he passed his hand nervously over his mouth, as if his lips were dry. Cartwright's manner to this witness was the manner of a lackey who hangs on every syllable that falls from his master's lips. "At what time, Mr. Tilden, did your son Bud reach your house on the night of the robbery?" The old man cleared his throat and said, as if weighing each word: "At ten minutes past ten o'clock." "How do you fix the time?" "I had just wound the clock when Bud come in." "How, Mr. Tilden, how far is it to the cross-roads where the mail-carrier says he was robbed?" "About a mile and a half from my place." "And how long would it take an able-bodied man to walk it?" "'Bout fifteen minutes." "Not more?" "No, sir." The Government's attorney had no questions to ask, and said so with a certain assumed nonchalance. Cartwright bowed smilingly, dismissed Bud's father with a satisfied gesture of the hand, looked over the court-room with the air of a man who was unable at the moment to find what he wanted, and in a low voice called: "Jennetta Mooro!"