Heart's Desire by Emerson Hough
page 51 of 330 (15%)
page 51 of 330 (15%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
been violated. Why, then, his client had been thus ruthlessly dragged
into court, to his great personal chagrin, his loss of time, his mental suffering, the attorney for defence could not say. It was injustice of a monstrous sort! Prosecution might well feel relieved if no retaliatory action were later taken against them for false imprisonment. This innocent young man must at once be discharged from custody. When Dan Anderson sat down there was not a man in the jury who was not bathed in perspiration. Abstruse thought was hard at work. Blackman, J. P., perspiring no less than any member of the jury, drew himself up, but he was troubled. "Evidence f'r the State," the Judge finally managed to stammer, turning to the attorney for the prosecution. But it never came so far along as that. There was a sound of many footsteps; voices came murmuring, growing louder. The door was pushed open from without, and in came much of the remaining population of Heart's Desire, so far as it could gain room. The man from Leavenworth was there, his whiskers wagging unintelligibly. McKinney was there, and Doc Tomlinson and Tom Osby, and everybody else; and, pushing through the crowd, there came the Littlest Girl from Kansas, her apron awry, her hair blown, her face flushed, her eyes moist with tears. "Curly!" cried she as at last her eyes caught sight of him. "Come right on out of here, this minute! Come along!" What would you have? The Law is the Law; but there are such things as supreme courts. It was useless for Blackman, J. P., to rap and call |
|