"It's been suggested that the wound which occasioned his death might have been--and probably was--caused by a blow from a salmon gaff.

What is your opinion ?" "It might have been," said the doctor cautiously.
"It was certainly caused by a pointed weapon--some sort of a spiked weapon ?" suggested Mr.Lindsey.
"A sharp, pointed weapon, most certainly," affirmed the doctor.
"There are other things than a salmon gaff that, in your opinion, could have caused it ?" "Oh, of course!" said the doctor.
Mr.Lindsey paused a moment, and looked round the court as if he were thinking over his next question.

Then he suddenly plunged his hand under the table at which he was standing, and amidst a dead silence drew out a long, narrow brown-paper parcel which I had seen him bring to the office that morning.

Quietly, while the silence grew deeper and the interest stronger, he produced from this an object such as I had never seen before--an implement or weapon about three feet in length, its shaft made of some tough but evidently elastic wood, furnished at one end with a strong iron ferrule, and at the other with a steel head, one extremity of which was shaped like a carpenter's adze, while the other tapered off to a fine point.

He balanced this across his open palms for a moment, so that the court might see it--then he passed it over to the witness-box.
"Now, doctor," he said, "look at that--which is one of the latest forms of the ice-ax.