CHAPTER III

THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME OF IT

What the case was in which Shiel Crozier was to give evidence is not
important; what came from the giving of his testimony is all that
matters; and this story would never have been written if he had not
entered the witness-box.

A court-room at any time seems a little warmer than any other spot to all
except the prisoner; but on a July day it is likely to be a punishment
for both innocent and guilty. A man had been killed by one of the group
of toughs called locally the M'Mahon Gang, and against the charge of
murder that of manslaughter had been set up in defence; and manslaughter
might mean jail for a year or two or no jail at all. Any evidence which
justified the charge of murder would mean not jail, but the rope in due
course; for this was not Montana or Idaho, where the law's delays
outlasted even the memory of the crime committed.

The court-room of Askatoon was crowded to suffocation, for the
M'Mahons were detested, and the murdered man had a good reputation in
the district. Besides, a widow and three children mourned their loss,
and the widow was in court. Also Crozier's evidence was expected to be
sensational, and to prove the swivel on which the fate of the accused man
would hang. Among those on the inside it was also known that the clever
but dissipated Augustus Burlingame, the counsel for the prisoner, had a
grudge against Crozier,--no one quite knew why except Kitty Tynan and her
mother, and that cross-examination would be pressed mercilessly when
Crozier entered the witness-box. As Burlingame came into the court-room
he said to the Young Doctor--he was always spoken of as the Young Doctor