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To men who for the past week had of necessity been confined within the stifling atmosphere of a crowded court-room, their present surroundings appealed as especially restful and exhilarating. During their absence their horses had been enjoying the luxury of a turn-out in the fenced pasture at the rear of the detachment, where there was good feed and a spring.
They followed the sheriff and his charge into the court-room, where Mrs. Newbolt introduced Colonel Price to her son. While Joe and his mother sat in whispered conversation at the attorney's table, the colonel studied the youth's countenance. He had expected to meet a weak-faced, bony-necked, shock-headed type of gangling youngster such as ranged the Kentucky hills in his own boyhood.
I was so gratified by this that I left the court-room in quite an agitated frame of mind, so agitated, indeed, that I walked through one door instead of another, and thus came unexpectedly upon a group formed almost exclusively of the Van Burnam family.
It is the characteristic picture of a prisoner on trial; guilty or innocent makes little difference on the surface. Nature, when we have reached the limit of endurance, lends us apathy. Ambrose had suffered so much he was dulled to suffering. He had not a friend in the court-room except Arthur Denholm.
We heard the evidence, and the attorneys made their arguments. They were out about as long as it would take a first-class barkeeper to make up twelve drinks, and then they filed back into the court-room, each one putting his handkerchief away, as if they had all been crying over the awful verdict they were about to render.
"To-morrow," the heavenly creature had said softly, like a caress, in the woman's ear when an attendant had taken her through the little door into the empty box. But the to-morrow broke with every illusion vanished. The woman sat beside her husband in the dismal court-room when the court convened. The judge, old and tired, was on the bench. A sulphurous, depressing fog entered from the city.
And then, in reply to the formal question, he had testified, amid roars of laughter from the court-room, that it was not he who robbed the safe. At this, even the judge and Wood's lawyer had not restrained a smile. This had left the guilt with Wood.
"While there he lived in a little log shack overlooking the Indian village. Nesis said it was Watusk's custom to go up to the shack every night and the two men would talk. She knew that they talked English together, and she used to steal up after Watusk and listen outside through a chink between the logs." Every eye in the court-room was turned on Gordon Strange.
The heavy coil of hair loosened when they bore her from the court-room, now released itself from restraining pins, and fell in burnished waves to her knees, clothing her with a glory, such as the world's great masters in art reserve for the beatified.
She it was who laughed in the gallery of the court-room the day that Joseph Nadeau was acquitted. It had pained and shocked the Cure more than any he had ever heard, but he urged for her no penalty as Portugais had set for himself with the austere approval of the Abbe.
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