arge of the estate, locking up the
house until possible relatives should come to claim it, and the rustic
jury found that Deluse "came to his death by visitation of God."

It was but a few nights after this that the Rev. Henry Galbraith returned
from a visit of a month to Cincinnati and reached his home after a night
of boisterous storm. The snow was so deep and the roads so blocked with
windfalls that he put up his horse in Gallipolis and started for his
house on foot.

"But where did you pass the night?" inquired his wife, after the
greetings were over. "With old Deluse in the Isle of Pines," he answered.
"I saw a light moving about the house, and rapped. No one came; so, as I
was freezing, I forced open the door, built a fire, and lay down in my
coat before it. Old Deluse came in presently and I apologized, but he
paid no attention to me. He seemed to be walking in his sleep and to be
searching for something. All night long I could hear his footsteps about
the house, in pauses of the storm."

The clergyman's wife and son looked at each other, and a friend who was
present--a lawyer, named Maren--remarked, "You did not know that Deluse
was dead and buried?" The clergyman was speechless with amazement. "You
have been dreaming," said the lawyer. "Still, if you like, we will go
there to-night and investigate."

The clergyman, his son, and the lawyer went to the house about nine
o'clock, and as they approached it a noise of fighting came from
within--blows, the clink of steel, groans, and curses. Lights appeared,
first at one window, then at another. The men rushed forward, burst in
the door, and were inside--in darkness and silence. They had brought
candles and lighted them, but the light revealed nothing. Dust lay thick
on the floor except in the room where the clergyman had passed the
previous night, and the door that he had then opened stood ajar, but the
snow outside was drifted and unbroken by footsteps. Then came the sound
of a fall that shook the building. At the same moment it was noticed by
the other two men that young Galbraith was absent. They hurried into the
room whence the noise had come. A board was wrenched from the wall there,
disclosing a hollow that had been used for a hiding-place, and on the
floor lay young Galbraith with a sack of Spanish coins in his hand. His
father stooped to pick him up, but staggered back in horror, for the
young man's life had gone. A post-mortem examination revealed no caus