they entered a big picnic wagon with parallel
seats and set out for the scene of the crime. Coroner Bogle demanded
that the body should be viewed officially before the man-hunt should
begin. Scattergood threw the weight of his opinion with the coroner.

The body was found lying beside a narrow path leading from the road
through a field to Asa Levens's farmhouse; it lay upon its face, with
arms outstretched, very still and very peaceful, with the morning sun
shining down upon it, and the robins singing from shadowing trees, and
insects buzzing and whirring cheerfully in the fields, and the fields
themselves peaceful and beautiful in their golden embellishments, ready
for the harvest. Scattergood looked about him at the trappings of the
day, and the thought came unbidden that it was a pleasant spot in which
to die ... perhaps more pleasant than the dead man deserved.

"Shot from behind." said the sheriff.

"By somebody a-layin' in wait," said Jed Lewis.

"It was murder--cold-blooded murder," said the sheriff.

Scattergood stepped forward as the coroner turned the face up to the
light of the sun.

"It was a death by violence," said Scattergood. "It may be murder....
Asa Levens wears, as he lies, the face of a man who troubled God...."

There was none in that little group to comprehend his meaning.

"There was no struggle," said the coroner.

"He never knowed he was shot," said Jed Lewis.

"Be you still a-goin' to arrest Abner Levens?" Scattergood asked.

"To be sure. He done it, didn't he? Who else would 'a' killed Asa?"

"Who else?" said Scattergood, solemnly.

They raised Asa Levens and carried him to his house. Having left him in
proper custody, the posse re-entered its picnic van and drove with no
small trepidation toward Abner Levens's farm, a mile away. Abner Levens
was perceived from a distance, hoeing in a field.

"He's goin' to face it out," said the sheriff; "or maybe he wasn't
expectin' Asa to be found yet."

The picnic van stopped beside the field and the armed posse scrambled
out, holding its weapons threateningly; but as Abner was armed with
nothing more lethal than a hoe there was some appearance of
embarrassment among them, and more than one man endeavored to make his
shooting iron invisible by dropping it in the long grass.

"Come on," said the sheriff, and in a body the posse advanced across the
field toward Abner, who leaned upon his hoe and waited for them. "Abner
Levens," said the she