He's_ here!" was exclaimed
by several, as an important little man was pushed along, and the
thickest crowd gave him passage. The little man borrowed a boy's cap to
kneel on, adjusted a sort of microscopic glass to his nose, as if plain
eyes had no adequate use to this scientific necessity, and he called up
two volunteers to turn the corpses over, keep back the throng, give him
light, and add imposition to apprehension. Finally he stopped at a place
in the garments of the principal of the twain. "Here is a hole," he
exclaimed, "with burned woollen fibre about it, as if a pistol had been
fired at close quarters. Draw back this woollen under-jacket! There--as
I expected, gentlemen, is a pistol shot in the breast! What is the name
of the person? Ah! thank you! Well, William Zane, gentlemen, was shot
before he was drowned?"

The great crowd swayed and rushed forward again, and again the ice
cracked like artillery. Before the multitude could swarm to the honey of
a crime a second time, the news was dispersed that both of the drowned
men had bullet wounds in their bodies, and both had been undoubtedly
murdered. Some supposed it was the work of river pirates; others a
private revenge, perpetrated by some following boat's party in the
darkness of night. But more than one person piped shrilly ere the people
wearily scattered in the dusk for their homes on the two shores of the
river: "How did it happen that young Zane, the old un's son, said
yisterday that his daddy was about, when he's been frozen in at least
three days?"

CHAPTER II.

THE FLIGHT.

A handsome residence on the south side of Queen Street had been the home
of the prosperous ship-carpenter, William Zane. His name was on the door
on a silver plate. As the evening deepened and the news spread, the bell
was pulled so often that it aided the universal alarm following a crime,
and a crowd of people, reinforced by others as fast as it thinned out,
kept up the watch on ever-recurring friends, coroner's officers and
newspaper reporters, as they ascended the steps, looked grave, made
inquiries, and returned to dispense their information.

But there was very little indignation, for Zane had been an insanely
passionate man, rather hard and exacting, and had he been found dead
alone anywhere it would probably have been said at once that he brought
it on himself. His partner, Rainey, however, had conducted himself so
negatively and mildly, and was of such general e