candle grease and
the remains of a fire. On the day of the Mathers's picnic he doubtless
saw the party pass through and recognized Colonel Gaylord. It brought to
his mind the thrashing he had received. While he was still brooding
over the matter, the Colonel came back alone, and it flashed into the
fellow's mind that this was his chance. He may have been afraid at first
or he may have hesitated through kindlier motives. At any rate he did
not attack the Colonel immediately, but retreated into the passage, and
the old man passed him without seeing him and went on into the gallery
and got the coat.

"In the meantime, the negro had made up his mind, and as the Colonel
came back, he crept along behind him. It is hard to trace the marks, for
another bare-footed man has walked over them since. But see, in this
place at the edge of the path, there's the mark of a palm, showing where
the assassin's hand rested when he crouched on the ground. He sprang
upon the old man from the rear and they struggled together over the
water--touch off a light, please--you see how the clay is all trampled
over on both sides of the path, 'way out to the brink of the pool. There
is no second set of marks here to obliterate it; we are dealing with
just two people--Colonel Gaylord and his assassin."

Terry bent low and picked up from a crevice what looked like a piece of
stone covered with clay.

"Here, you see, is the end of the Colonel's candle. He probably dropped
it when the man first sprang, and in the darkness he could not tell who
or what had attacked him. In his frenzy to have a light he snatched out
his match box--Radnor's box--and that too was dropped in the scuffle.

"Now, even if the original motive of the crime were not robbery but
revenge--as I fancy it was--at any rate the murderer, being a tramp and
a thief, would have robbed the body. But he did not. Why was that?
Because he saw or heard something that frightened him, and what could
that have been but Mose running to his master's assistance?"

Terry strode over to the steps which led to the incline, and motioning
us to follow, pointed out some marks on the sloping bank at the side of
the path.

"See, here are Mose's tracks. He was in such a hurry that he could not
wait to come up by the steps; he tried to take a cross cut. He scrambled
up the slippery bank so fast that he fell on his hands and knees in
this place and slid back. That accounts for those long dragging marks,
wh