Abe Barrow, the prisoner, had been as closely associated with the early history of Zepata as Colonel Macon himself, and was as widely known; he had killed in his day several of the Zepata citizens, and two visiting brother-desperadoes, and the corner where his gambling-house had stood was still known as Barrow’s Corner, to the regret of the druggist who had opened a shop there.  Ten years before, the murder of Deputy Sheriff Welsh had led him to the penitentiary, and a month previous to the opening of the new court-house he had been freed, and arrested at the prison gate to stand trial for the murder of Hubert Thompson.  The fight with Thompson had been a fair fight—­so those said who remembered it—­and Thompson was a man they could well spare; but the case against Barrow had been prepared during his incarceration by the new and youthful District Attorney, “Judge” Henry Harvey, and as it offered a fitting sacrifice for the dedication of the new temple of justice, the people were satisfied and grateful.

The court-room was as bare of ornament as the cell from which the prisoner had just been taken.  There was an imitation walnut clock at the back of the Judge’s hair-cloth sofa, his revolving chair, and his high desk.  This was the only ornament.  Below was the green table of the District Attorney, upon which rested his papers and law-books and his high hat.  To one side sat the jury, ranch-owners and prominent citizens, proud of having to serve on this the first day; and on the other the prisoner in his box.  Around them gathered the citizens of Zepata in close rows, crowded together on unpainted benches; back of them more citizens standing and a few awed Mexicans; and around all the whitewashed walls.  Colonel John Stogart, of Dallas, the prisoner’s attorney, procured obviously at great expense, no one knew by whom, and Barrow’s wife, a thin yellow-faced woman in a mean-fitting showy gown, sat among the local celebrities at the District Attorney’s elbow.  She was the only woman in the room.

Colonel Stogart’s speech had been good.  The citizens were glad it had been so good; it had kept up the general tone of excellence, and it was well that the best lawyer of Dallas should be present on this occasion, and that he should have made what the citizens of Zepata were proud to believe was one of the efforts of his life.  As they said, a court-house such as this one was not open for business every day.  It was also proper that Judge Truax, who was a real Judge, and not one by courtesy only, as was the young District Attorney, should sit upon the bench.  He also was associated with the early days and with the marvellous growth of Zepata City.  He had taught the young District Attorney much of what he knew, and his long white hair and silver-rimmed spectacles gave dignity and the appearance of calm justice to the bare room and to the heated words of the rival orators.

Colonel Stogart ceased speaking, and the District Attorney sucked in his upper lip with a nervous, impatient sigh as he recognized that the visiting attorney had proved murder in the second degree, and that an execution in the jail-yard would not follow as a fitting sequence.