第44章

"My mind's made up right now.There ain't no doubt but what he killed Kinade.We heard the whole thing last night.What's the good of goin' over it again? I vote guilty."In such fashion, Smoke's trial began.The speaker, a loose-jointed, hard-rock man from Colorado, manifested irritation and disgust when Harding set his suggestion aside, demanded the proceedings should be regular, and nominated one, Shunk Wilson, for judge and chairman of the meeting.The population of Two Cabins constituted the jury, though, after some discussion, the woman, Lucy, was denied the right to vote onSmoke's guilt or innocence.

While this was going on, Smoke, jammed into a corner on a bunk, overheard a whispered conversation between Breck and a miner.

"You haven't fifty pounds of flour you'll sell?" Breck queried."You ain't got the dust to pay the price I'm askin'," was the reply."I'll give you two hundred."The man shook his head."Three hundred.Three-fifty."At four hundred, the man nodded, and said: "Come on over to my cabin an' weigh out the dust."The two squeezed their way to the door, and slipped out.After a few minutes Breck returned alone.

Harding was testifying, when Smoke saw the door shoved open slightly, and in the crack appear the face of the man who had sold the flour.He was grimacing and beckoning emphatically to one inside, who arose from near the stove and started to work toward the door.

"Where are you goin', Sam?" Shunk Wilson demanded."I'll be back in a jiffy," Sam explained."I jes' got to go."Smoke was permitted to question the witnesses, and he was in the middle of the cross-examination of Harding, when from without came the whining of dogs in harness, and the grind and churn of sled- runners.Somebody near the door peeped out.

"It's Sam an' his pardner an' a dog-team hell-bent down the trail for Stewart River," the man reported.

Nobody spoke for a long half-minute, but men glanced significantly at one another, and a general restlessness pervaded the packed room.Out of the corner of his eye, Smoke caught a glimpse of Breck, Lucy, and her husband whispering together.

"Come on, you," Shunk Wilson said gruffly to Smoke."Cut this questionin' short.We know what you're tryin' to prove--that the other bank wasn't searched.The witness admits it.We admit it.It wasn't necessary.No tracks led to that bank.The snow wasn't broke.""There was a man on the other bank just the same," Smoke insisted."That's too thin for skatin', young man.There ain't many of us on theMcQuestion, an' we got every man accounted for.""Who was the man you hiked out of camp two weeks ago?" Smoke asked.

"Alonzo Miramar.He was a Mexican.What's that grub-thief got to do with it?""Nothing, except that you haven't accounted for HIM, Mr Judge." "He went down the river, not up.""How do you know where he went?" "Saw him start.""And that's all you know of what became of him?""No, it ain't, young man.I know, we all know, he had four day's grub an' no gun to shoot meat with.If he didn't make the settlement on the Yukon he'd croaked long before this.""I suppose you've got all the guns in this part of the country accounted for, too," Smoke observed pointedly.

Shunk Wilson was angry.

"You'd think I was the prisoner the way you slam questions into me.Come on with the next witness.Where's French Louis?"While French Louis was shoving forward, Lucy opened the door."Where you goin'?" Shunk Wilson shouted.

"I reckon I don't have to stay," she answered defiantly."I ain't got no vote, an' besides my cabin's so jammed up I can't breathe."In a few minutes her husband followed.The closing of the door was the first warning the judge received of it.

"Who was that?" he interrupted Pierre's narrative to ask.

"Bill Peabody," somebody spoke up."Said he wanted to ask his wife something and was coming right back."Instead of Bill, it was Lucy who re-entered, took off her furs, and resumed her place by the stove.

"I reckon we don't need to hear the rest of the witnesses," was Shunk Wilson's decision, when Pierre had finished."We know they only can testify to the same facts we've already heard.Say, Sorensen, you go an' bring Bill Peabody back.We'll be votin' a verdict pretty short.Now, Stranger, you can get up an' say your say concernin' what happened.Inthe meantime we'll just be savin' delay by passin' around the two rifles, the ammunition, an' the bullets that done the killin'."Midway in his story of how he had arrived in that part of the country, and at the point in his narrative where he described his own ambush and how he had fled to the bank, Smoke was interrupted by the indignant Shunk Wilson.

"Young man, what sense is there in you testifyin' that way? You're just takin' up valuable time.Of course you got the right to lie to save your neck, but we ain't goin' to stand for such foolishness.The rifle, the ammunition, the bullet that killed Joe Kinade is against you--What's that? Open the door, somebody!"The frost rushed in, taking form and substance in the heat of the room, while through the open door came the whining of dogs that decreased rapidly with distance.

"It's Sorensen an' Peabody," some one cried, "a-throwin' the whip into the dawgs an' headin' down river!""Now, what the hell--!" Shunk Wilson paused, with dropped jaw, and glared at Lucy."I reckon you can explain, Mrs Peabody."She tossed her head and compressed her lips, and Shunk Wilson's wrathful and suspicious gaze passed on and rested on Breck.