Upon this Grant was held in custody, while a party of men went in search of Belt.  Hours were spent in vain, when it was suggested that Belt’s dog, a vicious mongrel-cur, should be put upon the trail.  Accordingly the dog, which was usually seen at Belt’s heels, was given the scent of his master’s coat, and started rapidly down the road, his nose to the ground.  The testimony as elicited at the trial showed that the brute had bounded along to the Grant cottage, leaped upon the window sill, sniffed eagerly about the spot, then ran down the path to a clump of bushes on the river cliff.  Here the creature stopped and set up a piteous howl.  The pursuing party hastened to the spot, and there lay the body of Belt, who had fallen and died, as the autopsy revealed, of internal hemorrhage produced by a pistol shot.  As if to corroborate Grant’s statement, a chisel and a pistol were found in the grass under the window of his bedroom.

Such was the history of the case.  The absence of any testimony in behalf of the prisoner beyond his own assertion, was painfully evident.  His wife supported him in the facts, but the law did not permit a wife to testify in the husband’s case, so this evidence was unavailable.

The natural sympathy which death awakens in the human breast, especially a tragic one, had done its work even in the case of so unpopular a man as Belt, and already he was considered a martyr.  The desperate lamentations and impoverished condition of his family asserted their claims, and the time of trial found public opinion greatly divided.  The spark of envy in every community which had lain dormant as long as the Grants were novelties, sprung into life at their unwonted prosperity, and the gaily painted store and fanciful cottage became eyesores to more than one.  Various rumors, like uncanny spirits of air, floated about till the prisoner felt himself sinking into an abyss.  Once down, there seemed no power ready to lift him up.

He employed several distinguished attorneys as counsel, and I, a struggling young lawyer, whose ambition was to be worthy the mantle of an illustrious father, was also retained.  There was something about the case that inspired me to the utmost of which I was capable.  There was no circumstantial evidence against the prisoner.  He had frankly owned to shooting the man.  The issue rested upon his motive for the deed.  What was the provocation?  True, Belt may have threatened his life; but Belt was a drunkard, and who attached any importance to his words?

The prosecution endeavored to show that Grant, wearied with the enmity of Belt, and wishing to be rid of him, had enticed him away on the night of the killing, and shot him in cold blood.  True, a chisel and pistol had been found, but how easy for the prisoner to have placed them there to carry out his plans!  The dead man was proved to be a harmless character, though of intemperate habits and rough ways.  His antipathy to Grant was only natural, since the latter had, by ingratiating manners, flashy advertising dodges, and a few modern tricks of trade, ruined the business of the old-fashioned, plain-sailing German.