"Shure Oi did. The dude was skeered stiff whin Pete yanked out his gun. Pete said deliberate: 'Oi'll learn yuh to call me a card cheat.' Thin he plunked the dude twice in the stomach." Williams shouted: "I object!" The spectators began to move restlessly and mutter in low tones. The judge hammered on his desk. When silence was restored, he overruled Williams' objection. The district attorney met the belligerent eye of the foreman; he sensed the angry restlessness of the spectators. He was between the devil and the deep sea. A coward at heart, he yielded to the present menace. He had started this trial crooked, but he would have to finish it straight. Instantly he did a right-about face and changed his tactics. He called witness after witness, and his questions were now keenly edged. When the prosecution rested, not a man in the room would have taken the short end of a thousand to one that Pete Cable would not hang. The straight stories of those witnesses seemed already to have placed the rope around his bull-like neck. Confidence had left even the prisoner; pasty yellow mantled his usually red face. Williams did what he could; he called witnesses who flatly contradicted the first evidence, but under cross-examination they floundered and contradicted themselves. By five o'clock the rival attorneys asked time to prepare their summing up, and court adjourned. That night the district attorney made a wise decision; he slept in the jail. And two deputies reënforced the judge's usual escort of Dutchy and Silent. Late that night Allen attacked the mysterious little door in the barn with a large variety of keys. It gave at last, and he slipped inside. A ladder led to a hayloft, and he went up. He had no light and fumbled for many minutes before he found another door in the farther end of the loft. More key manipulation and it, too, yielded. Cautiously he crept along the short hall beyond and listened at the door at the end. "I've done all I will to save that fool," an unfamiliar voice rasped. "He's your brother." Allen knew that heavy guttural. It belonged to Francisco Garcia, the Toad. "You and he are alike. You lose your temper and kill," the other man replied. Allen searched his memory. Where had he heard that voice? At the risk of missing something he hurried to the door at the other end and listened. If any one came in through the barn he would be caught like a rat in a trap. Five seconds later he was back again, straining his ears. "We'll talk about that when he comes," the unknown man said. "We have got to start a clean-up pronto. It's our only chance. We got to get these gents out of the way." He read a list of names, which Allen carefully noted. When the man had finished, he added: "Jim Allen's in town!" "The Wolf!" A chair crashed as the Toad leaped up. "Skinny saw him and those grays of his over near the lava fields," the other added. "Skinny's downstairs waiting."