she too could look at the man, she saw what it was: he
was holding his rod with his left hand.

Their skiff had not paused; it passed him and his dug-out, and moved
onward a quarter of a mile--half a mile--before they spoke; they were
afraid the very air would betray them. Then Anne beached the boat under
the shade of a tree, took off her straw hat, and bathed her pale face in
the clear water.

"After all, it is the vaguest kind of a chance," said Miss Lois,
rallying, and bringing forward the common-sense view of the case: "no
better a one, at this stage, than the peony farmer or my medicine man.
You must not be excited, Ruth."

"I am excited only because I have thought so much of the river," said
Anne. "The theory that the man who did it went away from the foot of
that meadow in a boat, and up this river, has haunted me constantly."

"Theories are like scaffolding: they are not the house, but you can not
build the house without them," said Miss Lois. "What we've got to do
next is to see whether this man has all his fingers, whether he is a
woman, and whether he says, 'gold.' Will you leave it to me, or will you
speak to him yourself? On the whole, I think you had better speak to
him: your face is in your favor."

When Anne felt herself sufficiently calm, they rowed down the lake
again, and passed nearer to the dug-out, and paused.

"Have you taken many fish?" said Anne, in a voice totally unlike her
own, owing to the effort she made to control it. The fisherman looked
up, took his rod in his right hand, and, with his left, lifted a string
of fish.

"Pretty good, eh?" he said, regarding Anne with slow-coming approval.
"Have some?"

"Oh no," she answered, almost recoiling.

"But, on the whole, I think I _should_ like a few for tea, Ruth," said
Miss Lois, hastening to the rescue--"my health," she added, addressing
the fisherman, "not being what it was in the lifetime of Mr. Young. How
much are your fish? I should like six, if you do not ask too much."

The man named his price, and the widow objected. Then she asked him to
hold up the string again, that she might have a better view. He laid his
rod aside, held the string in his right hand, and as she selected, still
bargaining for the fish she preferred, he detached them with his left
hand. Two pairs of eyes, one old, sharp, and aided by spectacles, the
other young, soft, intent, yet fearful, watched his every motion. When
he held the fish toward them, the wid