Chapter XV: In Court

Court had taken up after the noon recess. The evidence was all in, and the prosecuting attorney had made a masterly address demanding a prison sentence for Tom Clipperton. The prosecutor had so marshaled the evidence that there did not seem a possible hope for Clip. The jurymen looked convinced, and the defiant bearing of the prisoner, which at no time had appealed to their sympathies, was far from making such an appeal now.

Short was in despair. He was not the man, however, to throw up his hands until the jury had announced their verdict and had been polled.

Short had begun his plea at eleven o'clock. He could have finished by noon, but he was talking against time, and announced that he would complete his address after court reconvened.

The train from Prescott was due at one-thirty. One of his clerks brought him word that it was five minutes late. With one eye on the clock he continued to reiterate some of the remarks he had already made.

The jury looked bored, the prosecuting attorney, who did not know what was up, smiled sarcastically, and the judge settled back in his chair with a look of resignation.

Just as the hands of the court-room clock pointed to a quarter of two there was a stir at the door. A crowd of excited men surged through, a red-haired boy, haggard, his face and hands covered with the grime of more than a hundred miles in a locomotive-cab, led the crowd. The boy staggered as he pressed through the room toward the enclosure.

"Evidence!" cried the red-haired boy huskily; "evidence for Tom Clipperton!"

There was a brief period of silence, during which the prisoner jumped to his feet and peered wonderingly at Chub McReady. Leffingwell, in charge of Clipperton, caught his arm and pulled him roughly back into his seat.

In another moment a buzz of excitement ran through the room, and was rapidly increasing to an uproar when the bailiff pounded for order.

"The room will be cleared," warned the judge, "unless we can have quiet."

Short, doubtful but snatching at a straw of hope, turned to the judge and requested that the case be reopened for the taking of further evidence. The prosecutor was instantly on his feet with an objection. Objection was overruled.

"I will call Chub McReady to the stand," said Short.

Another objection from the prosecutor. McReady's evidence was already in, according to the representative of the people, in the form of an affidavit.

Short begged to remind the learned counsel for the State that it was Matt King's affidavit that had been read in court, and not McReady's.

Objection overruled. Chub made his way unsteadily to the witness-chair, stood up while he was being sworn, and then dropped down in a way that showed how spent he was with recent efforts.

Fresh interest was injected into the case. The twelve good men and true in the jury-box were anything but bored now. Chub bore all the marks of having passed through a trying ordeal of some kind, and it must have been in behalf of the prisoner.

In the dead silence that fell over the room while Short was impressively making ready to begin his examination, a piping voice floated through the intense quiet.

"Shade o' Gallopin' Dick! It's Chub, my leetle pard, Chub! Him an' Motor Matt hev been workin' their heads off to git evidence fer Clipperton, an' here----"

"Silence!" thundered the judge. "Officer," he added, "if that man makes any more disturbance, put him out."

Welcome Perkins subsided. The prosecutor frowned, and Short looked pleased. Something had got to the jury which would help, rather than injure, the defendant.

"Your name?" asked Short, facing Chub.

"Mark McReady," came the answer, in a voice that trembled from fatigue and excitement.

"Age?"

"Seventeen."

"Place of residence?"

"Phoenix."

"Occupation?"

"Inventor."

Somebody snickered.

"Waal, he is!" cried Welcome. "Dad-bing!"

The officer started toward the reformed road-agent, and Welcome ducked into a corner of the room and hid behind a fat man who hadn't been able to find a seat.

"I will ask you to tell the jury, Mark," said Short, "just what you and Matt King have been doing in Prescott."

The prosecutor was on his feet like a shot, objecting, of course.

The judge knitted his brows.

"If it is pertinent to any evidence already introduced," decided his honor, "it can go in."

"It's an affidavit from Pima Pete!" quavered Chub, holding up the letter.

"Wait!" shouted the prosecutor.

"Don't speak, my boy, till I ask you something," said Short.

The prosecutor and Short got their heads together at the judge's desk, and the affidavit of Pima Pete was looked over.

"This is entirely relevant," declared the judge, "and we will have it read."

The affidavit was handed to the clerk, and he read the same in a loud, incisive voice.

The document stated, in clear, crisp terms, that the deponent was one Peter Sebastian, otherwise known as Pima Pete, that he had been a member of Dangerfield's gang of smugglers, told how Dangerfield had sold cattle and buried ten thousand dollars in double eagles, had intended to dig the money up on his way to Mexico, and had been captured before he could carry out his plans. The affidavit then went on to state how Dangerfield had requested Motor Matt to dig up the money for him, claiming that it was honest money, and send the lion's share of it to Dangerfield's father, in Emmetsburg, Iowa; how Pima Pete had given a note to Clipperton, asking him to tell Matt to come for the gold; how Matt had refused to mix up with Pete, and how Clipperton had gone, had joined Pete, had helped dig up the gold, and how both had been set upon by Hogan and Leffingwell.

That affidavit, written by Motor Matt in a tearing hurry, was a model of clearness and brevity.

The prosecutor was on hand with a whole lot of objections, aimed at having the affidavit stricken from the record. In the first place, the affidavit was in lead-pencil. This was unusual, and would allow of changing its contents; in the next place, how were they to know that Pima Pete, a proscribed outlaw, was the real author of the document? And what credence was a half-breed entitled to, anyway, even when under oath?

By all these objections the prosecutor, to use a very figurative expression, "put his foot in it."

Short was obliged to show, by the witness, just how the affidavit had been secured, and an opening was made for the tale of pluck and daring in which Matt and Chub had just figured.

Chub, at times almost overcome with weariness and grief, told the story. It was a telling recital, and held the great roomful of people spellbound. The jurymen leaned forward in their chairs, the judge leaned over his table, everybody craned their necks and listened intently so that not a word might get away from them.

Chub told how he and Matt had made up their minds to do everything they could to free their innocent chum; how Matt had drawn from the bank some of the money paid for the capture of Dangerfield, and had declared he would use every last cent of it to free Clip, who had got into his trouble on Dangerfield's account; how they had gone to Prescott, after receiving the tip at Mrs. Spooner's; how they had been chased by the two horsemen, and had got away by leaping the break in the road; how the weary days had dragged by in Prescott; how Matt had started Sheriff Burke to searching for the real robbers; how the note, tied to the stone, had been hurled through the hotel window on the night of the storm; and how the witness and Matt had gone to the old Hopewell shaft and met Pima Pete.

If the interest up to that point had been absorbing, it now became even more so.

Chub, in his quivering tones, went on to describe the meeting with Pima Pete, and Matt's plan for taking his affidavit, having a notary rushed out from Prescott, and then passing the document up to Chub on the Limited.

Chub had fortunately found the notary in his office; and in front of the office a horse and buggy were standing. He had hustled the notary off in short order, and had then gone to the station and taken the train, riding in the cab with Jack Moody, the engineer, who was a friend of the witness' father.

Just how Matt had accomplished the taking of the affidavit, Chub could not tell. All he knew was that when the limited dashed along the rails, some two miles out of Prescott, the notary, Matt, and Pima Pete were in the wagon-road, Pima Pete holding the notary's horse and Matt climbing after the train on his motor-cycle, the _Comet_, the machine Matt had won in a bicycle-race. Then Chub, mightily worked up himself and showing it in every word and gesture, proceeded to tell how he had tried to lean from the gangway and take the letter from Matt; how he had been thrown back by the fireman, only to get through the cab-window, hurry along the running-board, drop down on the steam-chest, and snatch the letter from Motor Matt's fingers. A sob came from him as he described how, standing on the foot-board and gripping the rail, he had seen the freight-wagon in the road and had heard a crash as Matt had collided with it, being unable to see ahead on account of the smoke, and unable, even if he had seen his danger, to stop the terrible impetus of a motor-cycle going at the rate of a mile a minute.

Here, at the finish of his recital, Chub McReady broke down. In spite of the bailiff's half-hearted attempt to keep order, pandemonium broke loose. Susie McReady ran to her brother's side, and Welcome, nearly oversetting the fat man, tore through the shouting crowd to get to the witness-chair.

Finally, order was again restored, and Short, bland and mightily satisfied with the turn of events, asked the prosecutor to "take the witness."

The prosecutor had nothing to say, and Chub got down and walked wearily to a seat beside Susie and Welcome.

And Clip! The first real feeling he had shown he showed then. With his face in his hands he leaned across the table beside which he was sitting.

Short finished his plea. He did not consume much time, for he was an astute lawyer and knew when he had his jury with him. Jurymen are emotional, as well as any one else; they can weigh the evidence, but sentiment cuts a big figure in any jury's decision--just how big probably even the jurymen themselves do not know.

The judge's charge was brief. He asked the jurymen to weigh the facts irrespective of the impression the heroism of the prisoner's friends might have had on them.

And when the charge was finished, without leaving their seats, a verdict of "not guilty" was rendered.

Then Bedlam broke loose again. Everybody crowded around Tom Clipperton to congratulate him.

But Clipperton, pushing his way through the crowd, started for the door.

"My pard!" he cried. "He's hurt, perhaps dead! I must get to Prescott."