Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/61

 bright for a month. Through it all Andrew Hall sat, uncalled upon to add what he could tell of the tragedy, his first feeling of astonishment melting down like a lump of beeswax on a hot stove to a troubled and uneasy state of spirit that had hardly enough force behind it to resent this plain, concocted conspiracy to make him the goat.

Hall's indignation began to mount after a while as he listened to man after man, Charley Burnett among them, to his unspeakable astonishment, swear that Bud Sandiver had just lopped down that way as if somebody had cut his legs off with a scythe, and expired within ten feet of the jail door. Hall took the stand eagerly, when called by the coroner at last, after he had settled down into the fixed opinion that he understood the town's purpose in framing up the case this way.

The justice of the peace presided at the inquiry, by virtue of his office, in the absence of the coroner, the eminent Doctor Ross. The justice's name was Hawthorn. He was a benignant sort of large soft man, gray-whiskered, bald. He held an unlit cigar in a long holder between his teeth all through the hearing. Under his leading, Hall recited the facts in the case as they appertained to himself. When he recounted how he had taken the pistol from Major Cottrell's hand and thrown it at Bud Sandiver's head, the presiding officer nodded, such a satisfied nod, so intense in its expression of lucidity, that it was almost a bow. That nod plainly said: "Now you have enlightened me; now the hidden mysteries of this case are laid bare."

The people who crowded the room received this testimony in a little more intensified spirit of interest. Their faces brightened, they seemed easier and happier than