Miles Feversham had subsided, dumbfounded, into his chair; his self-sufficiency had deserted him; for a moment the purple color surged in his face; his chagrin overwhelmed him.  But Marcia, seated in the front row outside the bar, showed no confusion.  Her brilliant, compelling eyes were on her husband.  It was as though she wished to reinforce him, and at the same time convey some urgent, vital thought.  He glanced around and, reading the look, started again to his feet.  He began to retract his denunciation.  It was evident he had been misinformed; he offered his apologies to the witness and asked that the case be resumed.  But the prosecuting attorney, disregarding him, continued to explain.  “In the Daniels’ manuscript, gentlemen, a coroner’s inquest exonerated the man who was responsible for the death of the papoose; this the magazine suppressed.  I am able to offer in evidence James Daniels’ affidavit.”

Then, while the jury gathered these varying ideas in fragments, Lucky Banks’ treble rose.  “Let’s hear what the lady wrote.”  And some one at the back of the courtroom said in a deep voice; “Read the lady’s letter.”

It seemed inevitable.  Mr. Bromley had separated a letter from the bundle of papers.  Involuntarily Marcia started up.  But the knocking of the gavel, sounding smartly, insistently, above the confusion, brought unexpected deliverance.

“It is unnecessary to further delay this Court with this issue,” announced the judge.  “The case before the jury already has dragged through nearly four weeks, and it should be conducted as expeditiously as possible to a close.  Mr. Bromley, the witness is sustained.”

Marcia settled back in her place; Miles Feversham, like a man who has slipped on the edge of a chasm, sat a moment longer, gripping the arms of his chair; then his shifting look caught Frederic’s wide-eyed gaze of uncomprehending innocence, and he weakly smiled.

“Mr. Tisdale,” began the prosecution, putting aside his papers and endeavoring to focus his mind again on the case, “you have spent some years with the Alaska division of the Geological Survey?”

“Every open season and some of the winters for a period of ten years, with the exception of three which I also spent in Alaska.”

“And you are particularly familiar with the locality included in the Chugach forest reserve, I understand, Mr. Tisdale.  Tell us a little about it.  It contains vast reaches of valuable and marketable timber, does it not?”

The genial lines crinkled lightly in Tisdale’s face.  “The Chugach forest contains some marketable timber on the lower Pacific slopes,” he replied, “where there is excessive precipitation and the influence of the warm Japan current, but along the streams on the other side of the divide there are only occasional growths of scrubby spruce, hardly suitable for telegraph poles or even railroad ties.”  He paused an instant then went on mellowly:  “Gifford