ned away, could only be conjectured.

"Who can have done it?" was the question asked by Superintendent
Brainerd, the autocrat of Overlook.

There was a minute of silence, with all staring intently at the body, as
though half expecting it to somehow disclose the truth. The night
watchman was first to speak.

"Eph might have done it," he said.

Then he told of the monomaniac's visit to the telegraph station, and of
the acute stage which his malady had reached. Nobody else present had
seen him since the previous evening. Superintendent Brainerd ordered a
search of the lodgings. Ten minutes were sufficient for a round of the
different quarters. Eph was in none of them. The searchers returned to
the furnace, and with them came Gerald Heath.

"I met Eph yonder where the paths cross, not a hundred yards from here,
a little past midnight," Gerald said. "He was terribly excited. That was
after he had tried in vain to telegraph a crazy message. Evidently his
delusion, that his whole life was condensed into a brief space, had
driven him to a frenzy. He spoke of walking to Dimmersville, but I tried
to quiet him, and he disappeared."

Dimmersville was a town about ten miles distant, in a direction opposite
to that from which the railroad had worked its way through the
mountains. No wire connected it with Overlook, and there was no public
road for the nearest third of the way, although a faint trail showed the
course that a few persons had taken on foot or horseback.

"Very likely Eph has gone toward Dimmersville," Brainerd argued, "and we
must try to catch him."

Before the order could be specifically given a horse and a rider arose
over the edge of the level ground and came into the midst of the
assemblage. The man in the saddle had a professional aspect, imparted
chiefly by his smoothly shaven face. In this era of mustaches a hairless
visage is apt to be assigned to a clergyman, who shaves thus from a
motive of propriety; an actor, who does it from necessity; or somebody
who aims at facial distinction without the features suitable to that
purpose. A countenance of which it can only be said that it has one
nose, one mouth, and two eyes, all placed in expressive nonentity, and
which is dominated utterly by hair on and around it, may be less lost to
individuality if entirely shaven. Of such seemed the visage of the dark
man, who calmly rode into the excitement at Overlook.

"Which way have you come?" Brainerd asked.

"Fro