hy, he was here on the steps a few minutes ago." Simeon Holly looked
about him a bit impatiently.

"Well, I want to see him. I've got a letter for him."

"A letter!" exclaimed Simeon Holly and Larson in amazed unison.

"Yes. Found it in his father's pocket," nodded the coroner, with all
the tantalizing brevity of a man who knows he has a choice morsel of
information that is eagerly awaited. "It's addressed to 'My boy David,'
so I calculated we'd better give it to him first without reading it,
seeing it's his. After he reads it, though, I want to see it. I want to
see if what it says is any nearer being horse-sense than the other one
is."

"The other one!" exclaimed the amazed chorus again.

"Oh, yes, there's another one," spoke up William Streeter tersely. "And
I've read it--all but the scrawl at the end. There couldn't anybody
read that!" Higgins laughed.

"Well, I'm free to confess 't is a sticker--that name," he admitted.
"And it's the name we want, of course, to tell us who they are--since
it seems the boy don't know, from what you said last night. I was in
hopes, by this morning, you'd have found out more from him."

Simeon Holly shook his head.

"'T was impossible."

"Gosh! I should say 't was," cut in Perry Larson, with emphasis. "An'
queer ain't no name for it. One minute he'd be talkin' good common
sense like anybody: an' the next he'd be chatterin' of coats made o'
ice, an' birds an' squirrels an' babbling brooks. He sure is dippy!
Listen. He actually don't seem ter know the diff'rence between himself
an' his fiddle. We was tryin' ter find out this mornin' what he could
do, an' what he wanted ter do, when if he didn't up an' say that his
father told him it didn't make so much diff'rence WHAT he did so long
as he kept hisself in tune an' didn't strike false notes. Now, what do
yer think o' that?"

"Yes, I, know" nodded Higgins musingly. "There WAS something queer
about them, and they weren't just ordinary tramps. Did I tell you? I
overtook them last night away up on the Fairbanks road by the Taylor
place, and I gave 'em a lift. I particularly noticed what a decent sort
they were. They were clean and quiet-spoken, and their clothes were
good, even if they were rough. Yet they didn't have any baggage but
them fiddles."

"But what was that second letter you mentioned?" asked Simeon Holly.

Higgins smiled oddly, and reached into his pocket.

"The letter? Oh, you're welcome to read the letter," he sa