The interruption, Pack thought, had done great harm to the Prosecution’s case and great good to the Marquis’s, for Long had betrayed himself indelibly as a man of rash misjudgment.

There ran through the crowd a sudden ripple of excited shouting. Pack saw people crushing toward the door. Something was happening outside. Pack saw legions of the curious pressing toward the doors and, since there was no possibility of getting through that way, he sprinted up the stairs onto the gallery, from which he was able to look out through the window.

They came forward on foot down the dusty center of Rosser Street, walking abreast, rifles in the crooks of their arms: Joe Ferris, Bill Sewall and Theodore Roosevelt, with Dutch Reuter unarmed among them. Dutch was furiously smoking a quirly and looking straight ahead with the rigidity of a man who expected a bullet in the back at any instant.

Below Pack’s window the sidewalk filled to overflowing with excited spectators. Dan McKenzie and a sizable group of De Morès men moved out onto the street, spreading wide enough to cover nearly the entire width of the thoroughfare, and Pack saw Dutch Reuter’s pace falter. Sewall gripped Dutch’s elbow and propelled him forward. The four men advanced steadily; McKenzie and the boys formed their line of skirmish, blocking the way to the courthouse door, and it occurred to Pack that from this high angle of view it rather resembled the movements of toy soldiers on a game board. Only toy soldiers didn’t carry loaded Winchesters.

It was Roosevelt who spoke, while still walking forward; Pack had no trouble hearing the clipped high-pitched words:

“Stand aside, gentlemen, if you please. We have lawful business before the court.”

It was foregone, really; none of the boys was prepared to start anything raw in front of dozens of witnesses in broad daylight. McKenzie must have realized that quickly enough, for he stepped aside without a word and Roosevelt’s party marched up the courthouse steps without pause.

Pack wheeled back to the gallery rail to look down into the courtroom.

Bill Sewall remained near the door with his rifle across his chest while Dutch, in semblance of suit and cravat, walked down the aisle between Theodore Roosevelt and Joe Ferris. The two guardians stopped at the railing where Roosevelt aggressively met the Marquis’s stony scowl while Dutch Reuter ascended the stand to testify. Roosevelt and Ferris went back to their seats. Mrs. Reuter was there, beaming infuriatingly at everyone around her.

As Dutch sat down in the witness chair he glared malevolently at the Marquis. The Marquis was royally dressed and, Pack thought, royally annoyed.

District Attorney Long aimed a savage glance of triumph toward the Defense table and when the babbling roar of the crowd finally calmed down he commenced to question the old German.

The Marquis had waited under the trees until the three hunters approached, and then had held their attention with insults while, from ambush across the river, someone—probably Jerry Paddock—had drawn a bead on the nearest of the three, who happened to be Riley Luffsey, and had shot him out of the saddle without warning, after which both the Marquis and the hidden gunman across the river had exhausted considerable supplies of ammunition in a vain attempt to wipe out Dutch Reuter and Frank O’Donnell, who had saved their own lives only by flattening themselves behind the bloody corpses of their horses and firing two or three blind shots in the air to discourage approach by their attackers.

This was the story Dutch told; it was the same story Frank O’Donnell had just finished telling, earlier on that same Friday morning.

Dutch’s broken English was no aid to comprehension, but Long patiently took him through his testimony time and again, so that there might be no confusion as to his statements.

The whole affair, Pack thought, was a shameful circus, inasmuch as it was patently obvious there wasn’t a whole lot of truth in the two outlaws’ bleatings.

On cross-examination the Aliens made valiant attempts to discredit the stories of O’Donnell and Reuter. But aside from a variety of minor discrepancies they failed to “break” either witness. That was hardly surprising, Pack thought, in view of the fact that if either of them admitted the whole yarn was a pack of lies, they’d go up for perjury and most likely they’d be lynched before sunset by the outraged citizenry. So they had no choice but to remain glued forever to their pathetic tissue of scandalous falsehoods.

And now it was Pack’s turn to testify. He felt his pulse rumble. Stage fright, he thought. When he took the witness chair he smiled nervously at the judge and tried to recall if he had remembered to comb his beard this morning.

Frank Allen took him cursorily through the events of the morning in question. It was no time for misgivings or doubts; Pack related the facts as he knew them. Then Frank Allen said, “Please describe to the jury the character of the witness Frank O’Donnell, as you know him.”

Pack said, “Mr. O’Donnell is a very rough fellow and reputedly a late associate of Jesse James. I recall being in the presence of Luffsey and O’Donnell on an occasion when I heard O’Donnell say, ‘Damn the Marquis or any of his men. If that son of a bitch of a Marquis or any of his men go near my ranch I will put a bullet into them.’ Later I asked Luffsey why O’Donnell had said such a thing, and Luffsey replied that ‘he had no use for the French son of a bitch.’ And upon another occasion I heard O’Donnell say to a crowd, ‘I tore down the son of a bitch’s fence and will do it again; if anyone thinks I won’t shoot the Marquis, let him step out here.’”

Frank Allen smiled. “May we remind the Court that there’s been ample testimony to show that the hunters were never seen to enter town unless they were armed to the teeth. In view of that testimony, as now reinforced by the word of this honorable and respected newspaper publisher, may we suggest to the Court that it is ever more obviously an outrage for the eminent prosecutor to refer to these outlaws, as he has done repeatedly during this trial, as ‘poor professional hunters’ and ‘peaceable citizens.’ By mendaciously accusing the Marquis of murder, these vagrants of the Little Missouri have tried to bring down the Marquis’s fences and to bring an end to what they mistakenly regard as French colonialism in the Bad Lands. Clearly, Your Honor, we have before us a classic case of insufficient evidence and reasonable doubt. Once again we ask for a directed verdict of Not Guilty.”

Judge Francis returned Frank Allen’s friendly smile in kind. He opened his mouth to speak. About time, too, Pack thought.

That was when there was a disturbance in the spectator rows. A man had stood up.

It was Theodore Roosevelt. He did not speak. He only stood to his full height—such as it was—and gazed across the intervening distance, staring the judge in the face.

Judge Francis brooded at the upstart. Like everyone in the courtroom he knew very well who Roosevelt was.

The judge considered what he had been about to say. Then he sat back. “I’m sorry, Mr. Allen, but this case will go to the jury.”

Never saying a word, Roosevelt sat down.

Pack did not understand why his own first involuntary reaction was to smile.

Nineteen

Joe Ferris finished cleaning his Remington revolver and replaced the heavy cartridges in the cylinder. He thought a while about the things he had seen and heard this week, and finally he went upstairs and down the length of the carpeted hall and knocked at the door of Theodore Roosevelt’s suite.

“Come in.”

The moment Joe entered the room his searching glance found Bill Sewall’s face and sought information in it. Lamplight threw hard shadows across Sewall’s deepset eyes. He smiled briefly.