the end
of the barrel in his mouth, then he drew up one foot and felt for the
trigger. He found it all right!'

'Maybe he did,' said Jake grimly. 'There's something mighty queer about
it.'

'Now what do you mean, Jake?' grandmother asked sharply.

'Well, ma'm, I found Krajiek's axe under the manger, and I picks it up
and carries it over to the corpse, and I take my oath it just fit the
gash in the front of the old man's face. That there Krajiek had been
sneakin' round, pale and quiet, and when he seen me examinin' the axe,
he begun whimperin', "My God, man, don't do that!" "I reckon I'm a-goin'
to look into this," says I. Then he begun to squeal like a rat and run
about wringin' his hands. "They'll hang me!" says he. "My God, they'll
hang me sure!"'

Fuchs spoke up impatiently. 'Krajiek's gone silly, Jake, and so have
you. The old man wouldn't have made all them preparations for Krajiek to
murder him, would he? It don't hang together. The gun was right beside
him when Ambrosch found him.'

'Krajiek could 'a' put it there, couldn't he?' Jake demanded.

Grandmother broke in excitedly: 'See here, Jake Marpole, don't you go
trying to add murder to suicide. We're deep enough in trouble. Otto
reads you too many of them detective stories.'

'It will be easy to decide all that, Emmaline,' said grandfather
quietly. 'If he shot himself in the way they think, the gash will be
torn from the inside outward.'

'Just so it is, Mr. Burden,' Otto affirmed. 'I seen bunches of hair and
stuff sticking to the poles and straw along the roof. They was blown up
there by gunshot, no question.'

Grandmother told grandfather she meant to go over to the Shimerdas' with
him.

'There is nothing you can do,' he said doubtfully. 'The body can't be
touched until we get the coroner here from Black Hawk, and that will be
a matter of several days, this weather.'

'Well, I can take them some victuals, anyway, and say a word of comfort
to them poor little girls. The oldest one was his darling, and was like
a right hand to him. He might have thought of her. He's left her alone
in a hard world.' She glanced distrustfully at Ambrosch, who was now
eating his breakfast at the kitchen table.

Fuchs, although he had been up in the cold nearly all night, was going
to make the long ride to Black Hawk to fetch the priest and the coroner.
On the grey gelding, our best horse, he would try to pick his way across
the country with no roads to guide him.