or
Philip has made friends with a man we have met here--a
surveyor, who has been camping high up, and shooting wild
goat. He is determined to go for an expedition with him, and
I had to telegraph to the Lieutenant-Governor to ask him not
to expect us till Thursday. So if you were to come back here
before then you would still find us. I don't know that I
could be of any use to you, or any consolation to you. But,
indeed, I would try.

"To-morrow I am told will be the inquest. My thoughts will be
with you constantly. By now you will have determined on your
line of action. I only know that it will be noble and
upright--like yourself.

"I remain, yours most sincerely"

"ELIZABETH MERTON."

Anderson pressed the letter to his lips. Its tender philosophising found
no echo in his own mind. But it soothed, because it came from her.

He lay dressed and wakeful on his bed through the night, and at nine
next morning the inquest opened, in the coffee-room of the hotel.

The body of the young constable was first identified. As to the hand
which had fired the shot that killed him, there was no certain evidence;
one of the police had seen the lame man with the white hair level his
revolver again after the first miss; but there was much shooting going
on, and no one could be sure from what quarter the fatal bullet
had come.

The court then proceeded to the identification of the dead robber. The
coroner, a rancher who bred the best horses in the district, called
first upon two strangers in plain clothes, who had arrived by the first
train from the South that morning. They proved to be the two officers
from Nevada. They had already examined the body, and they gave clear and
unhesitating evidence, identifying the old man as one Alexander McEwen,
well known to the police of the silver-mining State as a lawless and
dangerous character. He had been twice in jail, and had been the
associate of the notorious Bill Symonds in one or two criminal affairs
connected with "faked" claims and the like. The elder of the two
officers in particular drew a vivid and damning picture of the man's
life and personality, of the cunning with which he had evaded the law,
and the ruthlessness with which he had avenged one or two
private grudges.

"We have reason to suppose," said the American officer finally, "that
McEwen was not originally a native of the States. We believe that he