ich none of you appear to have noticed. Mose did his best, but he
could not reach his master in time. The murderer seeing--or rather
hearing him, for it must have been dark--was seized with sudden fear,
and with a convulsive effort he threw the old man against the rock wall
here, where his head struck on this broken stalactite. If you look
carefully you can see the marks of blood. He then hurled him into the
pool and fled."

"It sounds plausible enough," said the sheriff slowly, "but there are
one or two points which I'm afraid will not bear examining. Suppose your
man did thrown the Colonel into the water and run for it, then what, I
should like to know, has become of Cat-Eye Mose?"

"That," said Terry, knitting his brows, "is still a mystery and a fairly
deep one. There is something uncommonly strange about those tracks on
the lower borders of the pool and I confess they puzzle me. Only one
explanation occurs to me now and that is not pleasant to think of. We
have some clues to work with however, and we ought not to be long in
getting at the truth. If I had had your chance of examining the cave on
the day of the crime," he added, "I think I should know."

"You might, and again you might not," said Mattison. "It's easy enough
for you fellows to come down here and make up a story about a lot of
people you've never seen, but I'll tell you one thing, and that is that
you're not so likely to hit the truth as the men who've been brought up
in the country. In the first place it comes natural to niggers to be
whipped and they don't mind it. In the second place if your tramp _did_
want to take it out on the Colonel why should he be scared by Mose, who
was a little bit of a sawed-off cuss that I could lick with one hand
tied behind me? You may be able to impress a New York jury with a ham
bone and a cheese rind, Mr. Patten, but I can tell you, sir, that a
Virginia jury wants witnesses."

"We shall do our best to provide some," said Terry, coolly.

"And perhaps you can tell," added Mattison with the triumphant air of
clinching the matter, "what has become of the five thousand dollars in
bonds? You can never make me believe that any nigger--"

"Oh, they're back in the safe at Four-Pools. I found 'em this morning in
the spring-hole where the man had thrown them away.--Now, gentlemen," he
added with a touch of impatience, "I want to try a little experiment
before we leave the cave. Will you all please put out your lights? I
w