I noticed that
his fingers never left his hip pocket and that his eye never wavered
from the slouch hat on the prisoner's head. He evidently intended to
take no chances with a man who could have made mince-meat of both of
them had his hands been free.
We parted at the main entrance, the prisoner, with head erect and a
certain fearless, uncowed look on his boyish face, preceding the
deputies down a short flight of stone steps, closely followed by
the officer.
The trial, I could see, had evidently excited unusual interest. When I
mounted the main flight to the corridor opening into the trial chamber
and entered the great hallway, it was crowded with mountaineers--wild,
shaggy, unkempt-looking fellows, most of them. All were dressed in the
garb of their locality: coarse, rawhide shoes, deerskin waistcoats,
rough, butternut-dyed trousers and coats, and a coon-skin or army slouch
hat worn over one eye. Many of them had their saddle-bags with them.
There being no benches, those who were not standing were squatting on
their haunches, their shoulders against the bare wall.
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