amished, I thought
I'd see if some last morsel of food did not lurk under the papers. So I
emptied out everything and what should I find scrawled in pencil across
the bottom of the basket but the word 'Coulter.'"

"_Coulter!_" shouted the McGregors in disappointed accents.

"What has that to do with it?" Carl demanded.

"Why"--Hal looked crestfallen--"why, Mr. Coulter of Davis and Coulter
is one of my bosses, isn't he?"

"Y-e-s, I suppose he is. But he isn't mine. The two baskets were
exactly alike and must have come from the same person; and certainly
Mr. Coulter wouldn't send us a basket. Oh, you'll have to guess again,
Sherlock Holmes," concluded Carl with a shrug.

"Your father used to work for Mr. Coulter at the mill," Mrs. McGregor
put in in a subdued voice.

"But Dad died two years ago and Mr. Coulter never has troubled to send
us anything before. Why should he begin now?" Carl argued.

"Did you examine our basket?" It was Captain Dillingham who spoke.

"No, but we can. It's out in the pantry. Run and fetch it, Martin,
that's a good boy. I'm willing to bet a hat, though, ours has no
'Coulter' written on it. Yours got scrawled on somehow at the market.
The name doesn't mean anything. Here's Martin now. Get out your
glasses, you old detective, and look and see what you can find. If you
can find Coulter on our basket, I'll eat my head," Carl hazarded with
confidence.

"You hear him, witnesses," Hal said, holding up an impressive finger.

Then taking the basket from Martin, he inverted it.

"Will you never acknowledge, oh, you unbeliever, that I am wiser than
you?" he presently jeered. "Come! Look at the thing yourself over here
under the lamp. If that word isn't 'Coulter' I'll eat both your head
and mine."

"Jove! It _is_ Coulter!" was all Carl could stammer.

"What did I tell you!"

"But why should Mr. Coulter send a Christmas basket to us?" speculated
Carl in an awed whisper.

"I'm not telling you why. I've not got as far as that," Hal answered.
"All I said was that the name, Coulter, was written on both baskets and
that the natural conclusion is that Mr. Coulter was their sender."

"I don't believe it. Why, it would be ridiculous," Carl protested. "Mr.
Coulter probably never so much as heard of us in all his life. Why
should he? I'm sure we don't know him."

"I'm afraid your theory isn't quite sound, Hal," rejoined Mrs.
McGregor. "While it is possible that for some reason of his own Mr.
Coul