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The bag, with a slash in the bottom as big as its mouth, was then passed around the jury-box, each juror in his inspection of the cut seeming to be more interested in the way in which the bag was manufactured (some of them, I should judge, had never examined one before) than in the way in which it was mutilated. The bag was then put in evidence and hung over the back of a chair, mouth down, the gash in its bottom in full view of the jury. This gash, from where I sat, looked like one inflicted on an old-fashioned rubber football by a high kicker.

Hank Halliday, in a deerskin waistcoat and dust-stained slouch hat, which he crumpled up in his hand and held under his chin, was the next witness.

In a jerky, strained voice he told of his mailing a letter, from a village within a short distance of Bug Hollow, to a girl friend of his on the afternoon of the night of the robbery. He swore positively that this letter was in this same mail-bag, because he had handed it to the carrier himself before he got on his horse, and added, with equal positiveness, that it had never reached its destination. The value or purpose of this last testimony, the non-receipt of the letter, was not clear to me, except upon the theory that the charge of robbery might fail if it could be proved by the defence that no letter was missing.

Bud fastened his eyes on Halliday and smiled as he made this last statement about the undelivered letter, the first smile I had seen across his face, but gave no other sign indicating that Halliday’s testimony affected his chances in any way.

Then followed the usual bad-character witnesses–both friends of Halliday, I could see; two this time–one charging Bud with all the crimes in the decalogue, and the other, under the lead of the prosecutor, launching forth into an account of a turkey-shoot in which Bud had wrongfully claimed the turkey–an account which was at last cut short by the Judge in the midst of its most interesting part, as having no particular bearing on the case.

Up to this time no one had appeared for the accused, nor had any objection been made to any part of the testimony except by the Judge. Neither had any one of the prosecutor’s witnesses been asked a single question in rebuttal.

With the resting of the Government’s case a dead silence fell upon the room.

The Judge waited a few moments, the tap of his lead-pencil sounding through the stillness, and then asked if the attorney for the defence was ready.

No one answered. Again the Judge put the question, this time with some impatience.

Then he addressed the prisoner.

“Is your lawyer present?”

Bud bent forward in his chair, put his hands on his knees, and answered slowly, without a tremor in his voice:

“I ain’t got none. One come yisterday to the jail, but he didn’t like what I tol’ him and he ain’t showed up since.”

A spectator sitting by the door, between an old man and a young girl, both evidently from the mountains, rose to his feet and walked briskly to the open space before the Judge. He had sharp, restless eyes, wore gloves, and carried a silk hat in one hand.

“In the absence of the prisoner’s counsel, your Honor,” he said, “I am willing to go on with this case. I was here when it opened and have heard all the testimony. I have also conferred with some of the witnesses for the defence.”

“Did I not appoint counsel in this case yesterday?” said the Judge, turning to the clerk.

There was a hurried conference between the two, the Judge listening wearily, cupping his ear with his hand and the clerk rising on his toes so that he could reach his Honor’s hearing the easier.

“It seems,” said the Judge, resuming his position, and addressing the room at large, “that the counsel already appointed has been called out of town on urgent business. If the prisoner has no objection, and if you, sir–” looking straight at the would-be attorney–“have heard all the testimony so far offered, the Court sees no objection to your acting in his place.”