This glade, now empty, had once held a man, or men. Here was a trodden place where a horse had been tied to a tree. Here was the broken end of a lariat. Here had been a little bivouac, a bed scraped up of the scanty fallen leaves and bunches of taller grass. Here were broken bushes — broken, how? There was the fire, now sunken into a heap of ashes, a long, large, white heap, very large for a cowman's camp fire. And there —
And there was it! There was some Thing. There was the reason of this unspoken warning in the air. There lay the object of their search. In a flash the revolvers covered the cowering figure of the giant, who, prone upon his knees, was now raving, gibbering, praying, calling upon long-forgotten saints to save him from this sight, "O Santa Maria! O Purissima! O Madre de Dios!" he moaned, wringing his hands and shivering as though stricken with an ague. He writhed among the leaves, his eyes fixed only upon that ghastly shape which lay before him.
There, in the ashes of the dead fire, as though embalmed, as though alive, as though lingering to accuse and to convict, lay the body of Greathouse, the missing man. Not merely a charred, incinerated mass, the figure lay in the full appearance of life, a cast of the actual man, moulded with fineness from the white ashes of the fire! Not a feature, not a limb, not a fragment of clothing was left undestroyed; yet none the less here, stretched across the bed of the burned-out fire, with face upturned, with one arm doubled beneath the head and the other with clinched hand outflung, lay the image, the counterpart, nay, the identity of the man they sought! It was a death mask, wrought by the pity of the destroying flames. These winds, this sky, the air, the rain, all had spared and left it here in accusation most terrible, in evidence unparalleled, incredibly yet irresistibly true!
Franklin felt his heart stop as he looked upon this sight, and Curly's face grew pale beneath its tan. They gazed for a moment quietly, then Curly sighed and stepped back. "Keep him covered, Cap," he said, and, going to his horse, he loosened the long lariat.
"Arriba, Juan," he said quietly. "Get up." He kicked at the Mexican with his foot as he lay, and stirred him into action. "Get up, Juan," he repeated, and the giant obeyed meekly as a child. Curly tied his hands behind his back, took away his knife, and bound him fast to a tree. Juan offered no resistance whatever, but looked at Curly with wondering dumb protest in his eyes, as of an animal unjustly punished. Curly turned again to the fire.
"It's him, all right," said he; "that's Cal." Franklin nodded.
Curly picked up a bit of stick and began to stir among the ashes, but as he did so both he and Franklin uttered an exclamation of surprise. By accident he had touched one of the limbs. The stick passed through it, leaving behind but a crumbled, formless heap of ashes. Curly essayed investigation upon the other side of the fire. A touch, and the whole ghastly figure was gone! There remained no trace of what had lain there. The shallow, incrusting shell of the fickle ash broke in and fell, all the thin exterior covering dropping into the cavern which it had inclosed! Before them lay not charred and dismembered remains, but simply a flat table of ashes, midway along it a slightly higher ridge, at which the wind, hitherto not conspiring, now toyed, flicking away items here and there, carrying them, spreading them, returning them unto the dust. Cal Greathouse had made his charge, and left it with the Frontier to cast the reckoning.
CHAPTER XXVIII THE TRIAL
"Your Honour," said Franklin to the Court, "I appear to defend this man."
The opening sentence of the young advocate might have been uttered in burlesque. To call this a court of justice might have seemed sheer libel. There was not the first suggestion of the dignity and solemnity of the law.
Ellisville had no hall of justice, and the court sat at one place or another, as convenience dictated. This being an important case, and one in which all the populace was interested, Judge Bristol had selected the largest available assembly room, which happened to be the central hall of Sam Poston's livery barn. The judge sat behind a large upturned box, which supported a few battered books. At his right the red-nosed prosecuting attorney shuffled his papers. Along the sides of the open hall-way, through whose open doors at each end the wind passed freely, sat jury and audience, indiscriminately mingled. The prisoner himself, ignorant of the meaning of all this, sat on an upturned tub, unshackled and unguarded. Back of these figures appeared the heads of a double row of horses. The stamp of an uneasy hoof, the steady crunch of jaws upon the hay, with now and then a moist blowing cough from a stall, made up a minor train of intermittent sound. Back of the seated men others were massed, standing in the doorways. Outside the building stood crowds, now and then increased or lessened by those who passed in or out of the room where the court was in session. These interested spectators were for the most part dark, sunburned men, wearing wide hats and narrow boots with spurs. They all were armed. Leaning against the sides of the mangers, or resting a hand upon the shoulders of another, they gazed calmly at the bar of justice. The attitude of Ellisville was one of sardonic calm. As a function, as a show, this trial might go on.
The trial did go on, rapidly, without quibbling, indeed without much regard for the formalities of the law. The jury had been selected before Franklin made his appearance, and he was given to understand that this jury was good enough for him, and was the one before which this prisoner should be tried. A formal motion for the discharge of the prisoner was overruled. Without much delay the prosecuting attorney arose to present his charge.
"Yo' Honah," said the attorney for the State, arising and striking an attitude learned in earlier forensic days — "yo Honah, an' gentlemen, I rise to present to you, an' to push to the ultimate penalty of the law, a case of the most serious, the most heinyus crime, committed by the most desperate and dangerous criminal, that has thus far ever disturbed the peaceful course of ouah quiet little community. There he sets befo' you," he cried, suddenly raising his voice and pointing a forefinger at the prisoner, who sat smiling amiably. "There he sets, the hardened and self-confessed criminal, guilty of the foulest crime upon the calendar of ouah law. A murderer, gentlemen, a murderer with red hands an' with the brand of Cain upon his brow! This man, this fiend, killed ouah fellow-citizen Calvin Greathouse — he brutally murdered him. Not content with murder, he attempted to destroy his body with fiah, seekin' thus to wipe out the record of his crime. But the fiah itself would not destroy the remains of that prince of men, ouah missin' friend an' brother! His corpse cried out, accusin' this guilty man, an' then an' there this hardened wretch fell abjeckly onto his knees an' called on all his heathen saints to save him, to smite him blind, that he might no mo' see, sleepin' or wakin', the image of that murdered man — that murdered man, ouah friend an' brother, ouah citizen an' friend."
The orator knew his audience. He knew the real jury. The shuffling and whispers were his confirmation.
"Yo' Honah," began the accusing voice again, "I see him now. I see this prisoner, this murderer, the central figger of that wild an' awful scene. He falls upon his knees, he wrings his hands, he supplicates high Heaven — that infinite Powah which gave life to each of us as the one most precious gift — he beseeches Providence to breathe back again into that cold clay the divine spark of which his red hand had robbed it. Useless, useless! The dead can not arise. The murdered man can remain to accuse, but he can not arise again in life, He can not again hear the songs of birds. He can not again hear the prattle of his babes. He can not again take a friend by the hand. He can not come to life. The heavens do not open fo' that benef'cent end!
"But, yo' Honah, the heavens will open! They will send down a bolt o' justice. Nay, they would send down upon ouah heads a forked messenger o' wrath it we should fail to administer justice, fail to do that juty intrusted into ouah hands! There sets the man! There he is befo' you! His guilt has been admitted. Answer me, gentlemen, what is ouah juty in this case? Shall we set this incarnate fiend free in the lan' again — shall we let him come clear o' this charge — shall we turn him loose again in ouah midst to murder some other of ouah citizens?