that there had been no violation of the Law through any act of this
honest, open-faced, intelligent young gentleman, long known among them
as an upright and fair-dealing man. The Law, just and exact, would now
protect this prisoner. The Law was no matter of haphazard. The
prosecution must show that some specific article of the Law had been
violated.

"Now," continued Dan Anderson, casting an eye about him as calmly as
could have done any old trial lawyer examining the condition of his
jury, "what are the charges made by the Territory? The prosecution
specifies no section or paragraph of the statutes of this Territory
holding it unlawful to shoot any dangerous wild beast at large in this
community. But we do not admit that this prisoner shot anything, or
shot at anything whatever. We shall prove that at the time mentioned
he was engaged in a simple, harmless, and useful pastime, a pastime
laudable of itself, since it tends to make the participant therein a
better and more useful citizen. There is no Territorial law forbidding
any act which he is here charged with committing. Neither has the body
social in this thriving community placed upon its records any local
law, any indication that a man may not, without let or hindrance, do
any act such as those charged vaguely against this good young man, who
has only availed himself of his right under the Constitution to bear
arms, to assemble in public, and to engage in the pursuit of happiness."

The prosecution, he said, had introduced reference to a certain pig,
alleging that it was slain by the act of the prisoner. He would not
admit that there had been any pig, since no _corpus delicti_ was
shown; but in any event this was no civil suit now in progress. We
were not here to assess value upon a supposititious pig, injured in a
supposititious manner, and not represented here of counsel. No law had