eth, and so was forced to look
about me for some one whom I could conscientiously suspect. I fixed upon
this unhappy man in Buffalo; how truly, your own suspicions,
unfortunately, reveal."

"And I had to have my wits started by a horrid old woman," murmured the
evidently abashed Hickory.

"Horrid old woman!" repeated Mr. Byrd. "Not Sally Perkins?"

"Yes. A sweet one, isn't she?"

Mr. Byrd shuddered.

"Tell me about it," said he, coming and sitting down in the seat the
other had previously indicated to him.

"I will, sir; I will: but first let's look at the weather. Some folks
would think it just as well for you to change that toggery of yours.
What do you say to going home first, and talking afterward?"

"I suppose it would be wise," admitted Mr. Byrd, looking down at his
garments, whose decidedly damp condition he had scarcely noticed in his
excitement. "And yet I hate to leave this spot till I learn how you came
to choose it as the scene of the tragi-comedy you have enacted here
to-day, and what position it is likely to occupy in the testimony which
you have collected against this young man."

"Wait, then," said the bustling fellow, "till I build you the least bit
of a fire to warm you. It won't take but a minute," he averred, piling
together some old sticks that cumbered the hearth, and straightway
setting a match to them. "See! isn't that pleasant? And now, just cast
your eye at this!" he continued, drawing a comfortable-looking flask out
of his pocket and handing it over to the other with a dry laugh. "Isn't
_this_ pleasant?" And he threw himself down on the floor and stretched
out his hands to the blaze, with a gusto which the dreary hour he had
undoubtedly passed made perfectly natural, if not excusable.

"I thank you," said Mr. Byrd; "I didn't know I was so chilled," and he,
too, enjoyed the warmth. "And, now," he pursued, after a moment, "go on;
let us have the thing out at once."

But the other was in no hurry. "Very good, sir," he cried; "but, first,
if you don't mind, suppose you tell me what brought _you_ to this hut
to-day?"

"I was on the look-out for clues. In my study of the situation, I
decided that the murderer of Mrs. Clemmens escaped, not from the front,
but from the back, of the house. Taking the path I imagined him to have
trod, I came upon this hut. It naturally attracted my attention, and
to-day I came back to examine it more closely in the hope of picking up
some signs of his havi