The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1913-04-05

her mother, who had got it from MFR.
Ferguson.
1t seemed that IN Saturday. just aft
er Halle had left the court, the Span
ish woman had taken the witness stand
and testified that she had been Rood's
wife. Mr.. Ferguson said this was RI
diculous to suppose, yet no one. not
even Mr.. Dingley, had challenged her
statement. She denied there had ever
been any trouble between the two men.
She said she had been interested in Mr..
Montgomery as a woman might be who
was old enough to be his mother, but
that Rood had beer her husband and
that she had loved and been faithful
to him. She was wonderfully calm
and convincing, Mr.. Ferguson had said.
n it looked at first as If her testi-
mony would help the defense very
much, but when Mr.. Dingley's asso-
ciate began cross examining her he
seemed to turn her testimony inside
out, and then it appeared that her evil
dence had been the worst thing pos
sible for the prisoner. Fol IL Rood had
stood so firmly in Montgomery's way,
the lawyer argued. that would give the
very strongest motive for the shooting.
Wasn't it dreadful" Halle ex-
claimed-"when she wanted SO much
to help him to find she had only made
things worse? Father said that when
she realized how the evidence had been
turned against him she grew an white
as DEATH"
From this / was able to understand
better why the Spanish woman had
been willing to take the terrible chance
involved in sending for me to come to
her house. She must have been des-
perate. But what l could not under
stand was, Why had not Mr.. Dingley
challenged any of her testimony in the
court? Why was it always his asso-
ciate?
l bad a sense of things going on un-
der the surface which even my father
did not suspect. There was plenty OF
news flying about in plain hearing and
sight-news of mob law preached from
the custom house steps; news of the
double guard at the Jail so there would
be no second chance of escape-all
these things / heard without their be-
ing able to rouse in me any special in
terest. My mind was fixed on the I'M
dercurrents. l couldn't explain them
to father because / didn't understand
them myself-only felt them.
There was no telling, l thought, what
the Spanish woman might not manage
to do. Suppose, with her dark power,
she was going to be the ~enchantress
tomorrow. Was she again going to
scatter in some unforeseen and UNI
combatable way all my testimony and
~triumphantly see the prisoner acquit-
ted? Oughtu't I to be glad that he
would be free? All, that was the
strange part of it. For it appeared to
me that in such an acquittal there
would be something doubly guilty,
something that would send him out of
the court under a deeper shadow thar
ever he had found in prison, something
that would pledge him to her forever.
After the restless crowd, craning
necks, shifting feet, half caught SEN
fences; excited, alert, like q nervous
horse dancing at a shadow, ready at
the vaguest rumor to rush into a SEN
odtlOh, " 4uACI, PiOcaNN dnA CNCh
peaceful the courtroom seemed! That
morning when we entered it was only
partly filled.
Some women came In all in a group,
among them Halle Ferguson, her
mother hanging back in her wake, as
If she were being towed along in spite
of herself. Halle came over to where
we sat and began to whisper In my
ear some long story of something which
she was deeply absorbed in at the mo-
ment. This, too, had a habitual and
pleasant feeling about it. Even when,
with a black veil over her face, sweep
ing in folds down the length Of her
dress, the Spanish woman came in it
was hard to believe that she was that
same terrible creature who had stood
before me only the day before yester-
day telling me I should never leave
her house.
She took one of the chairs which
had been placed along the wall, so
that instead of facing the judges desk
she fronted the crowd, and threw her
veil back. She looked white, whittier
than l had ever seen her, as IL she
were deeply powdered, and this had
the effect of a mask. I have never
seen a human face so calm or so In
differently sweet as hers, and she sat
as motionless as if she had peer carved
there. One heard the whisperings
around the ROOM, saw the nudges and
the twisting of heads, but it vas as IL
she did not see or know them. Then
the interest of the room turned toward
the door. With that queer instinct OF
a crowd, which knows before it sees,
the whole room knew that the prisoner
was coming before there was a glimpse
of him visible.
He walked up the aisle, looking re-