It is an April day and I have come into town and am rushing from place to place attending to many things.  Reverdy has met me at the bank to tell me of another opportunity to buy a team of horses and some oxen; for we use the latter mostly to draw the plows that turn up the heavy sod of the prairie.  Reverdy has just told me of Lamborn’s threat to come to my farm and take Zoe:  that when a girl was once his she was always his.  He had said these things at the barber shop.  Something came over me.  I resolved that this intolerable state of affairs, of anxiety for Zoe, of misunderstanding for myself, of dread of the future, of a sort of brake on my life as of something holding me back and impeding my happiness and peace of mind ... all this had to end somehow and soon.  I could not live and go on with things as they were.

We stepped from the bank.  And there, not ten feet away, stood Lamborn.  His mouth became a scrawl, he uttered a growl, he swayed with passion, he moved his hands at his side in a sort of twisting motion.  And I thought:  there are Zoe and Dorothy, and I may create a feud against me that will follow me for years ... yet this man must die.  And I drew my pistol and fired ...  Lamborn sank to the ground without a groan.  Some of the McCall boys ran out.  I fired at them.  They fled.  I walked forward a step or two.  Then I asked Reverdy if he had seen Lamborn reach for his pistol.  Reverdy had seen this.  I had not.  In fact, Lamborn did nothing of the sort.  But if Reverdy saw this he could swear to it and help me.  The excitement of the precise moment was now over.  I felt weak and anxious.  I wanted to see Douglas.  As state’s attorney he could help me.  Douglas was soon on the scene.  He had heard what I had done.  I wanted to talk with him.  He waved me off saying:  “You must have counsel of your own.  You must not talk to me.  I would be compelled in the discharge of my duty to use against you anything you might tell me.”  With that he walked away.

He could not be my friend in this hour of need!  What was I to do?  Yes, there was Reverdy.  But when it came to the matter of locking me up Douglas said:  “If Mr. Clayton signs the bond ... make the bond $1000 ... don’t lock him up.  Get a coroner’s jury.”

There was not a member of this jury who had not been exposed to some of this vile talk about Zoe and me, in the general contagion of the village gossip.  How should this examination be managed?  Of course the single question, they told me, was the manner of Lamborn’s meeting his death.  But the coroner’s jury had the power to bind me to the grand jury for an indictment, and that I wished to escape.  Well, I had been threatened, to be sure.  But why?  If Lamborn wanted Zoe and I had her in my house and kept him from seeing her, was it for a good or a selfish reason?  Were we not rivals for the same favor?  Did one have her and one lose her?  Had I killed Lamborn for jealousy, or in self-defense?  The single fact that I had shot him stood against the background of all this gossip and village understanding, and was necessarily read into it for my undoing or my freedom.