As my pa said this, his voice rose up so you could hear him all over town. John Armstrong said you could have heard him clear to Oakford. The audience just shivered when pa said this. "Let me go on," said pa. "Let us assume Joe Rainey comes in and runs up-stairs for his pistol and goes out. Well, they pick him up on the porch and no pistol is on him. Then they come out and look, but find no pistol. What would they have done? There would have been talk so loud about that missing pistol that even Major Abbott could have heard it--clear over to Jerseyville. Why was nothing said? Because the hand that put that pistol there, the woman that put it there was terrified. She was afraid that some one had seen her put it there; she knew some one picked it up that she didn't want to have pick it up--she was afraid it would turn up against her in the wrong hands. And she and this crowd--whoever they were--if there was one, were afraid to go on with the evidence they had started to manufacture. And this testimony of Mitchie Miller is every word true. You saw his face, you heard him, you know he wouldn't lie--and as for having visions--if he dreamed this, he would be fit for an asylum, and every one of you could see it--and he would be in an asylum." Than pa just lit into Temple Scott. He said he was a coward, and he said when Joe Rainey asked him not to come to his house any more, it was his business to stay away. And that for himself he meant to stop lawlessness in the town. He intended to do his duty so fully that people would be afraid to break the law and take life. And then he said he had done his duty, and now the jury had to do theirs, and he left the case with them. And then the judge read a lot of instructions to the jury and Sheriff Rutledge took 'em and locked 'em up and we sat and waited. They was out all that day and all that night and all the next day. And we waited. And finally toward evening they came in and told the judge they couldn't agree. It seems, so pa said, two of the jurors was for hangin' and five for the penitentiary, and five for acquittal. So they was discharged. Temple Scott was held to the next term of court for another trial, and court adjourned. CHAPTER XXIV So court bein' over, the town was dull again and all deserted. Watermelon rinds and newspapers was all over the court house yard. Hardly any farmers was in town. The stores seemed empty. And Mitch was quieter than I ever saw him. He didn't look well. He was reading Shakespeare; and I saw him go by with Charley King and George Heigold. I began to feel that I was losin' him.