At this juncture La Flitche nodded his head in approbation, and she went on.

Capital had been made out of the blood on St. Vincent’s hands.  If they chose to examine the moccasins at that moment on the feet of Mr. La Flitche, they would also find blood.  That did not argue that Mr. La Flitche had been a party to the shedding of the blood.

Mr. Brown had drawn attention to the fact that the prisoner had not been bruised or marked in the savage encounter which had taken place.  She thanked him for having done so.  John Borg’s body showed that it had been roughly used.  He was a larger, stronger, heavier man than St. Vincent.  If, as charged, St. Vincent had committed the murder, and necessarily, therefore, engaged in a struggle severe enough to bruise John Borg, how was it that he had come out unharmed?  That was a point worthy of consideration.

Another one was, why did he run down the trail?  It was inconceivable, if he had committed the murder, that he should, without dressing or preparation for escape, run towards the other cabins.  It was, however, easily conceivable that he should take up the pursuit of the real murderers, and in the darkness—­exhausted, breathless, and certainly somewhat excited—­run blindly down the trail.

Her summing up was a strong piece of synthesis; and when she had done, the meeting applauded her roundly.  But she was angry and hurt, for she knew the demonstration was for her sex rather than for her cause and the work she had done.

Bill Brown, somewhat of a shyster, and his ear ever cocked to the crowd, was not above taking advantage when opportunity offered, and when it did not offer, to dogmatize artfully.  In this his native humor was a strong factor, and when he had finished with the mysterious masked men they were as exploded sun-myths,—­which phrase he promptly applied to them.

They could not have got off the island.  The condition of the ice for the three or four hours preceding the break-up would not have permitted it.  The prisoner had implicated none of the residents of the island, while every one of them, with the exception of the prisoner, had been accounted for elsewhere.  Possibly the prisoner was excited when he ran down the trail into the arms of La Flitche and John the Swede.  One should have thought, however, that he had grown used to such things in Siberia.  But that was immaterial; the facts were that he was undoubtedly in an abnormal state of excitement, that he was hysterically excited, and that a murderer under such circumstances would take little account of where he ran.  Such things had happened before.  Many a man had butted into his own retribution.

In the matter of the relations of Borg, Bella, and St. Vincent, he made a strong appeal to the instinctive prejudices of his listeners, and for the time being abandoned matter-of-fact reasoning for all-potent sentimental platitudes.  He granted that circumstantial evidence never proved anything absolutely.  It was not necessary it should.  Beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt was all that was required.  That this had been done, he went on to review the testimony.