ll?"

"Well what?"

"Do you think you know?"

The visitor stood for a moment without answering. Then he said:

"No, nothing."

"Why, of course not!" cried the farmer, throwing up his arms. "How
should you know! It's all hanky-panky. Shall I tell you what I think?
Well, that old Trainard has been so jolly clever that he's lying dead in
his hole ... and the bank-notes are rotting with him. Do you hear? You
can take my word for it."

The gentleman said, very calmly:

"There's only one thing that interests me. The tramp, all said and done,
was free at night and able to feed on what he could pick up. But how
about drinking?"

"Out of the question!" shouted the farmer. "Quite out of the question!
There's no water except this; and we have kept watch beside it every
night."

"It's a spring. Where does it rise?"

"Here, where we stand."

"Is there enough pressure to bring it into the pool of itself?"

"Yes."

"And where does the water go when it runs out of the pool?"

"Into this pipe here, which goes under ground and carries it to the
house, for use in the kitchen. So there's no way of drinking, seeing
that we were there and that the spring is twenty yards from the house."

"Hasn't it rained during the last four weeks?"

"Not once: I've told you that already."

The stranger went to the spring and examined it. The trough was formed
of a few boards of wood joined together just above the ground; and the
water ran through it, slow and clear.

"The water's not more than a foot deep, is it?" he asked.

In order to measure it, he picked up from the grass a straw which he
dipped into the pool. But, as he was stooping, he suddenly broke off and
looked around him.

"Oh, how funny!" he said, bursting into a peal of laughter.

"Why, what's the matter?" spluttered old Goussot, rushing toward the
pool, as though a man could have lain hidden between those narrow
boards.

And Mother Goussot clasped her hands.

"What is it? Have you seen him? Where is he?"

"Neither in it nor under it," replied the stranger, who was still
laughing.

He made for the house, eagerly followed by the farmer, the old woman and
the four sons. The inn-keeper was there also, as were the people from
the inn who had been watching the stranger's movements. And there was a
dead silence, while they waited for the extraordinary disclosure.

"It's as I thought," he said, with an amused expression. "The old chap
had to quench his thirst somew