With a sudden excitement in his voice, Anton turned to the negro.

"How many pairs of shoes have you got?" he asked.

Dan'l caught the tension in his voice.

"Two pair, Mistah Anton," he said.

"Which did you wear this afternoon?"

"These hyar."

"And where are the others?"

"In yonder corner."

Anton limped across the room and brought out the second pair of shoes.

The leather was all dry and wrinkled. They had evidently not been used for a long time.

"He's right, Mr. Abner," he said, "he wore those shoes."

The sheriff, divining by the excitement in the boy's voice that there was a hidden purpose in these remarks, took up the second pair of shoes and looked at them.

"Yes, that's sho'," he answered, "he didn't wear these hyar!"

"Then he wore those," said Anton.

"Well, what if he did?"

"Look at your shoes," said the boy.

"Well?" queried the sheriff, looking down at his boots.

"They're muddy, aren't they?" persisted the boy.

"Right muddy," the sheriff agreed.

"And Bill's shoes are muddy, too."

There was no doubt of that, either.

"Well?" said the sheriff, questioningly.

For answer Anton held out Dan'l's other shoe, the one he had been holding in his hand.

"This isn't muddy," he said. "What's more, it's got dust on it, dust in all the cracks. You can see it hasn't been cleaned for a long time, probably never since it was given him."

"Well?" repeated the sheriff, still uncomprehending.

"Lindstrom's place is more'n a mile from here," declared Anton, his heart beating hard.

"Jest a mile," said Ole Lindstrom.

"And you say the shooting was before half-past eight?"

"It sho' was," the sheriff answered, "it was jest a little after half-past eight that Carl was carried home."

"Then," declared Anton, in a quiet way that carried conviction, "Dan'l didn't do it, and I can prove it."

"Mistah Anton! Mistah Anton!" the darky cried.

"Quiet! You!" said the man who was holding the prisoner.

"What do you mean, Anton?" the boy's father asked him.

"It's quite easy," the boy declared. "If the shooting was done before half-past eight, it was done just about the time that the rain began. It would take Dan'l--if he'd done it--all of twenty minutes to walk from Lindstrom's place here. It rained heavily, if you like I can give you the amount of rain in tenths of an inch, and twenty minutes of walking in that rain would make him wet through. By the time it had rained five minutes, the ground would be muddy. But see, Mr. Abner, the soles of the shoes are quite dry. And, Dan'l's clothes are quite dry."

He picked up the gun that stood leaning in the corner.

"The gun's dry, it hasn't been cleaned and there's no rust on it. Dan'l hasn't got two sets of rough clothes and he sure hasn't got two guns.

Doesn't that prove he couldn't have been out after the rain started?"

The sheriff looked a little dubious.

"Yo' sho' put up a good argument for yo' n.i.g.g.e.r," he said, "but yo'

boys' foolin' about weather ain't evidence. That don't go in court, yo'

know."

"You're a little wrong there, Mr. Abner," said Anton's father. "This is an official co-operative observer's station of the Weather Bureau. By a decision of the supreme court, our records have got to be accepted as evidence. There's a ruling to that effect."

"There is, eh?" said the sheriff. "First I ever knew of it. But if yo'

say so, why, of course, it's so. But how can you-all tell when the rain began?"

"When rain comes down unusually hard," the boy answered, "the Weather Bureau likes to keep a record of the amount of precipitation in five minute intervals. My big record-book is in the house, but here are the notes I made," and he took a little note-book from the pocket of his shirt.

"'Rain began, 8.21,'" he read, "'first five minutes three-tenths of an inch, second five minutes four-tenths, third five minutes, three-tenths,'" he stopped and held the book open, "it began to get less, then, and I didn't need to keep the record any longer. But you can see, Mr. Abner, that it was impossible for Dan'l to have left the Lindstroms' and reached here before the rain came, and just as impossible for him to have come through the rain with dry clothes and dusty shoes."

"An' the courts have a ruling that weather records is evidence?"

"From an official station such as this, yes!" Anton's father declared.

"Evidence as to weather is a factor in a great variety of cases. Civil cases are largely personal injury, damage to perishable goods by freezing or rain and loss by fire. The criminal cases are usually confined to murder trials.

"When accidents occur by reason of a street car running into somebody or something, the question arises as to whether the rails were so slippery that the car could not be stopped. This fact is, of course, important in an action for damages. A slippery rail can be caused by 'sweating' but it is generally due to recent rain. The relative humidity may be such as to prevent the drying up of the rail.

"An observer was called in a case where it was alleged that the plaintiff had been injured by being pitched through the open window of a car. It was claimed that she was trying to shut the window on account of the raw, cold weather and, as the car reached a curve, she was suddenly thrown headlong into the street. The weather record showed that it was a warm and sunny day.

"The question as to whether a sidewalk was sufficiently slippery to make it dangerous for travel frequently comes up in court. One such case, I remember, was that of a man who asked damages from a jitney driver for starting his bus before he had alighted. The driver declared that the pa.s.senger slipped and fell on the ice in the gutter, several feet away from the bus. The plaintiff declared that it was a warm day and that there was no ice. The weather record showed rain the day before, with a severe frost during the night, precisely the conditions to support the jitney-driver's story.

"Many accidents are alleged to have been due to fog. The weather expert is called upon to testify to the degree of visibility permitted by atmospheric conditions. One man who was accused of murder and who undoubtedly would have been convicted, was positively identified by the wife of the murdered man, the woman declaring that she saw him at a certain hour of the evening pa.s.sing in front of the house. The Weather Records showed conclusively that, at that hour, owing to the excessive cloudiness of the atmosphere, it would have been impossible for the woman to identify the suspect, even at half the distance.