Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/678

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538
FOUND THE DEAD BODY.

By the aid of the diagram we went to the ground after night, built up a fire and waited till morning. As soon as it was light enough to see, the doctor took the diagram out of his pocket, looked at it and said: "It should be near here." He then turned, and seeing a tree that had been blown over, said: "There is a tree that answers to the description." We walked to the tree and at once saw the toe of one of the dead man's boots protruding through the brush. The doctor when gathering wood the night before to build a fire, had walked almost over the body and had picked up two or three chips of wood from the brush which covered the body. We waited some time before the crowd came with the wagon. After they arrived the body was uncovered, loaded into the wagon and hauled to Jacksonville, arriving in time for the coroner to hold the inquest that afternoon, and the following day the body was buried.

The time having been set for the preliminary examination, Barton's wife and her father arrived in Jacksonville the day before the time set for the trial, and his father-in-law employed an attorney to conduct the case in court in his behalf. When Barton was brought into court he waived examination, but it was quite different with Buckley. When he was brought in for trial the judge asked him if he had counsel. He said he did not, nor did he want any, but the judge appointed a lawyer to take his case.

The lawyer took the prisoner off into a room in company with the deputy sheriff and they were gone about twenty minutes. When they returned the lawyer stated that the prisoner wished to plead guilty and receive his