Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/334

328 and conviction of Miss Clark, like all positive convictions, was not without its influence on the larger unimpaneled Grand Jury of One Horse Gulch, and, by reflection, at last on the impaneled Jury itself.

"When you come to consider, gentlemen," said one of those dangerous characters, a sagacious, far-seeing juror, "when you come to consider that the principal witness o' the prosecution and the people at the inquest don't know this yer Greaser woman, and kinder throws off her testimony, and the prosecution don't seem to agree, it looks mighty queer. And I put it to you as far-minded men, if it ain't mighty queer? And this yer Sal Clark one of our own people."

An impression at once inimical to the new mistress and stranger, and favorable to the accused Gabriel, instantly took possession of One Horse Gulch.

Meanwhile the man who was largely responsible for this excitement and these conflicting opinions, maintained a gravity and silence as indomitable and impassive as his alleged victim then slumbering peacefully in the little cemetery on Round Hill. He conversed but little even with his counsel and friend, Lawyer Maxwell, and received with his usual submissiveness and gentle deprecatoriness the statement of that gentleman that Mr. Dumphy had already bespoken the services of one of the most prominent lawyers of San Francisco, Mr. Arthur Poinsett, to assist in the defense. When Maxwell added that Mr. Poinsett had expressed a wish to hold his first consultation with Gabriel privately, the latter replied with his usual simplicity:

"I reckon I've now't to say to him ez I hain't said to ye: but it's all right!"

"Then I'll expect you over to my office at eleven to-morrow?" asked Maxwell.

"Thet's so," responded Gabriel, "though I reckon thet anything you and him might fix up to be dumped onto thet jury, would be pleasin' and satisfactory to me."

At a few minutes of eleven the next morning Mr. Maxwell, in accordance with a previous understanding with Mr. Poinsett, put on his hat and left his office in the charge of that gentleman, that he might receive and entertain Gabriel in complete privacy and confidence. As Arthur sat there alone, fine gentleman as he was and famous in his profession, he was conscious of a certain degree of nervousness that galled his pride greatly. He was about to meet the man whose cherished sister six years ago he had stolen! Such at least Arthur felt was Gabriel's opinion! He had no remorse nor consciousness of guilt or wrong-doing in that act! But in looking at the fact, in his professional habit of viewing both sides of a question, he made this allowance for the sentiment of the prosecution; and putting himself, in his old fashion, in the position of his opponent, he judged that Gabriel might consistently exhibit some degree of indignation at their first meeting. That there was, however, really any moral question involved, he did not believe. The girl, Grace Conroy, had gone with him readily, after a careful and honorable statement of the facts of her situation, and Gabriel's authority or concern in any subsequent sentimental complication he utterly denied. That he, Arthur, had acted in a most honorable, high-minded, and even weakly generous fashion toward Grace, that he had obeyed her frivolous whims as well as her most reasonable demands, that he had gone back to Starvation Camp on a hopeless quest just to satisfy her, that everything had happened exactly as he had predicted, and that when he had returned to her he found that she had deserted him. These, these were the facts that were incontrovertible! Arthur was satisfied that he had been honorable and even generous; he was quite convinced that this very nervousness that he now experienced was solely the condition of a mind too sympathetic even with the feelings of an opponent in affliction. "I must not give way to this absurd Quixotic sense of honor," said this young gentleman to himself, severely.

Nevertheless, at exactly eleven o'clock, when the staircase creaked with the strong, steady tread of the giant Gabriel, Arthur felt a sudden start to his pulse. There was a hesitating rap at the door—a rap that was so absurdly inconsistent with the previous tread on the staircase—as inconsistent as were as all the mental and physical acts of Gabriel, that Arthur was amused and reassured.

"Come in," he said, with a return of his old confidence, and the door opened to Gabriel, diffident and embarrassed.

"I was told by Lawyer Maxwell," said Gabriel slowly, without raising his eyes and only dimly cognizant of the slight, strong, elegant figure before him, "I was told that Mr. Arthur Poinsett reckoned to see me today, at eleving o'clock so I came. Be you Mr. Poinsett?" (Gabriel here raised his eyes) "be you, eh? Why it's—eh?—