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"Have you a lawyer?"

It was Judge Bristol who asked the question, leaning forward with manner that was at once courteous and impersonal, and looking into the eyes of the youth who once had sworn to kill him. The Kid shook his head.

"No money with which to hire a lawyer?"

"No." The Kid's eyes tightened and his mouth hardened at the admission. This was an unexpected humiliation. He had had promises of financial assistance. But not a friend had dared come to his aid in his extremity. The famous outlaw stood before the court as a pauper.

Again with impassive, formal courtesy, Judge Bristol appointed Ira E. Leonard of Lincoln to conduct the defense. It was the Kid's first acquaintance with the machine-like precision of court procedure. He began to sense for the first time in his life the cold, inexorable power and momentum of the law.

The Kid was placed on trial for the murder of Agency Clerk Bernstein on the Mescalero reservation. There had been no eyewitnesses except members of the Kid's own band. These were dead now or driven out of the country. The evidence for the prosecution was inconsequential. The jury brought in a verdict of acquittal without leaving the box. The Kid took heart. He smiled broadly. His prospects were looking up.

He was tried immediately afterward for the murder of Sheriff Brady. There had been several eyewitnesses to this assassination. "Dad" Peppin, Billy Matthews, "Bonny" Baca took the stand. Peppin and Matthews had been Brady's companions; Baca had witnessed the murder from the old stone tower in Lincoln that the pioneers had built as protection against the Indians. One after the other they told clear, straightforward stories that fastened