You would think that the bare word of a man who has lived uprightly in a community for fifteen years or so would be believed under oath,even if his whole future did depend upon it.You would think that Aleck Douglas could not be convicted of murder just because he had reported that a man was shot down in Aleck's house.
The report of Aleck Douglas'trial is not the main feature of this story;it is merely the commencement,one might say.Therefore,I am going to be brief as I can and still give you a clear idea of the situation,and then I am going to skip the next three years and begin where the real story begins.
Aleck's position was dishearteningly simple,and there was nothing much that one could do to soften the facts or throw a new light on the murder.Lite watched,wide awake and eager,many a night for the return of that prowler,but he never saw or heard a thing that gave him any clue whatever.So the footprints seemed likely to remain the mystery they had seemed on the morning when he discovered them.He laid traps,pretending to ride away from the ranch to town before dark,and returning cautiously by way of the trail down the bluff behind the house.But nothing came of it.Lazy A ranch was keeping its secret well,and by the time the trial was begun,Lite had given up hope.
Once he believed the house had been visited in the daytime,during his absence in town,but he could not be sure of that.
Jean went to Chinook and stayed there,so that Lite saw her seldom.Carl also was away much of the time,trying by every means he could think of to swing public opinion and the evidence in Aleck's favor.He prevailed upon Rossman,who was Montana's best-known lawyer,to defend the case,for one thing.He seemed to pin his faith almost wholly upon Rossman,and declared to every one that Aleck would never be convicted.
It would be,he maintained,impossible to convict him,with Rossman handling the case;and he always added the statement that you can't send an innocent man to jail,if things are handled right.
Perhaps he did not,after all,handle things right.For in spite of Rossman,and Aleck's splendid reputation,and the meager evidence against him,he was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in Deer Lodge penitentiary.
Rossman had made a great speech,and had made men in the jury blink back unshed tears.But he could not shake from them the belief that Aleck Douglas had ridden home and met Johnny Croft,calmly making himself at home in the Lazy A kitchen.He could not convince them that there had not been a quarrel,and that Aleck had not fired the shot in the grip of a sudden,overwhelming rage against Croft.By Aleck's own statement he had been at the ranch some time before he had started for town to report the murder.By the word of several witnesses,it had been proven that Croft had left town meaning to collect wages which he claimed were due him or else he would "get even."His last words to a group out by the hitching pole in front of the saloon which was Johnny's hangout,were:
"I'm going to get what's coming to me,or there'll be one fine,large bunch of trouble!"He had not mentioned Aleck Douglas by name,it is true;but the fact that he had been found at the Lazy A was proof enough that he had referred to Aleck when he spoke.
There is no means of knowing just how far-reaching was the effect of that impulsive lie which Lite had told at the inquest.He did not repeat the blunder at the trial.When the district attorney reminded Lite of the statement he had made,Lite had calmly explained that he had made a mistake;he should have said that he had seen Aleck ride away from the ranch instead of to it.Beyond that he would not go,question him as they might.
The judge sentenced Aleck to eight years,and publicly regretted the fact that Aleck had persisted in asserting his innocence;had he pleaded guilty instead,the judge more than hinted,the sentence would have been made as light as the law would permit.It was the stubborn denial of the deed in the face of all reason,he said,that went far toward weaning from the prisoner what sympathy he would otherwise have commanded from the public and the court of justice.
You know how those things go.There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary in the case;we read of such things in the paper,and a paragraph or two is considered sufficient space to give so commonplace a happening.
But there was Lite,loyal to his last breath in the face of his secret belief that Aleck was probably guilty;loyal and blaming himself bitterly for hurting Aleck's cause when he had meant only to help.There was Jean,dazed by the magnitude of the catastrophe that had overtaken them all;clinging to Lite as to the only part of her home that was left to her,steadfastly refusing to believe that they would actually take her dad away to prison,until the very last minute when she stood on the crowded depot platform and watched in dry-eyed misery while the train slid away and bore him out of her life.These things are not put in the papers.
"Come on,Jean."Lite took her by the arm and swung her away from the curious crowd which she did not see."You're my girl now,and I'm going to start right in using my authority.I've got Pard here in the stable.You go climb into your riding-clothes,and we'll hit it outa this darned burg where every man and his dog has all gone to eyes and tongues.They make me sick.Come on.""Where?"Jean held back a little with vague stubbornness against the thought of taking up life again without her dad."This--this is the jumping-off place,Lite.There's nothing beyond."Lite gripped her arm a little tighter if anything,and led her across the street and down the high sidewalk that bridged a swampy tract at the edge of town beyond the depot.