Ralph then proceeded to tell how he had left Pete Jones’s, Mr. Jones’s bed being uncomfortable; how he had walked through the pasture; how he had seen three men on horseback:  how he had noticed the sorrel with the white left forefoot and white nose; how he had seen Dr. Small; how, after his return, he had heard some one enter the house, and how he had recognized the horse the next morning.  “There,” said Ralph desperately, leveling his finger at Pete, “there is a man who will yet see the inside of a penitentiary, I shall not live to see it, but the rest of you will.”  Pete quailed.  Ralph’s speech could not of course break the force of the testimony against him.  But it had its effect, and it had effect enough to alarm Bronson, who rose and said: 

“I should like to ask the prisoner at the bar one question.”

“Ask me a dozen,” said Hartsook, looking more like a king than a criminal.

“Well, then, Mr. Hartsook.  You need not answer unless you choose; but what prompted you to take the direction you did in your walk on that evening?”

This shot brought Ralph down.  To answer this question truly would attach to friendless Hannah Thomson some of the disgrace that now belonged to him.

“I decline to answer,” said Ralph.

“Of course, I do not want the prisoner to criminate himself,” said Bronson significantly.

During this last passage Bud had come in, but, to Ralph’s disappointment he remained near the door, talking to Walter Johnson, who had come with him.  The magistrates put their heads together to fix the amount of bail, and, as they differed, talked for some minutes.  Small now for the first time thought best to make a move in his own proper person.  He could hardly have been afraid of Ralph’s acquittal.  He may have been a little anxious at the manner in which he had been mentioned, and at the significant look of Ralph, and he probably meant to excite indignation enough against the school-master to break the force of his speech, and secure the lynching of the prisoner, chiefly by people outside his gang.  He rose and asked the court in gentlest tones to hear him.  He had no personal interest in this trial, except his interest in the welfare of his old schoolmate, Mr. Hartsook.  He was grieved and disappointed to find the evidence against him so damaging and he would not for the world add a feather to it, if it were not that his own name had been twice alluded to by the defendant, and by his friend, and perhaps his confederate, John Pearson.  He was prepared to swear that he was not over in Flat Creek the night of the robbery later than ten o’clock, and while the statements of the two persons alluded to, whether maliciously intended or not, could not implicate him at all, he thought perhaps this lack of veracity in their statements might be of weight in determining some other points.  He therefore suggested—­he could only suggest, as he was not a party to the case in any way—­that his student, Mr. Walter Johnson, be called to testify as to his—­Dr. Small’s—­exact whereabouts on the night in question.  They were together in his office until two, when he went to the tavern and went to bed.