WHAT A MAN'S GOOD NAME IS WORTH You would think that the bare word of a man who has lived uprightly in a community for fifteen years or so would be believed under oath, even if his whole future did depend upon it.

You would think that Aleck Douglas could not be convicted of murder just because he had reported that a man was shot down in Aleck's house.
The report of Aleck Douglas' trial is not the main feature of this story; it is merely the commencement, one might say.

Therefore, I am going to be brief as I can and still give you a clear idea of the situation, and then I am going to skip the next three years and begin where the real story begins.
Aleck's position was dishearteningly simple, and there was nothing much that one could do to soften the facts or throw a new light on the murder.

Lite watched, wide awake and eager, many a night for the return of that prowler, but he never saw or heard a thing that gave him any clue whatever.

So the footprints seemed likely to remain the mystery they had seemed on the morning when he discovered them.