ed pouring out the soup and set the bowls on the
table.

Chairs clattered, and soon the men were eating. Mart finished
his soup before the others and sat back smacking his lips. As
Munn finished the last spoonful in his bowl he pulled out a
wicked-looking black pipe, crammed it full of tobacco and lighted it.

Blowing out a big blue breath of the pleasant smoke, he inquired,
"Been any strangers around to-day?"

Mart scratched his head. "Yeah. A man come by early this afternoon.
He was aiming to climb the hill. I told him he'd better wait till
the sun come out. I don't know whether he did or not."

"See anybody later--say about half an hour ago?"

Mart shook his head. "No. I come up from the beach and I didn't pass
nobody."

The sheriff pulled on his pipe for a moment. "That boy of yours
still catching butterflies?" he asked presently.

Mart scowled. He swung out a long arm toward the walls with their
floods of butterflies. But he did not answer.

"Uh-huh!" said Munn, following the gesture with his quiet eyes. He
puffed several times before he spoke again.

"What time did you come in, Brenner, from the beach?"

Mrs. Brenner closed her hands tightly, the interlaced ringers
locking themselves.

"Oh, about forty minutes ago, I guess it was. Wasn't it, Olga?" Mart
said carelessly.

"Yes." Her voice was a breath.

"Was your boy out to-day?"

Mart looked at his wife. "I dunno."

Munn's glance came to the wife.

"Yes."

"How long ago did he come in?"

"About an hour ago." Her voice was flat and lifeless.

"And where had he been?" Munn's tone was gentle but insistent.

Her terrified glance sought Mart's face. "He'd been on the beach!"
she said in a defiant tone.

Mart continued to look at her, but there was no expression in his
face. He still wore his peculiar affable smile.

"Where did these tracks come from, on the floor?"

Swift horror fastened itself on Mrs. Brenner.

"What's that to you?" she flared.

She heard her husband's hypocritical and soothing tones. "Now, now,
Olga! That ain't the way to talk to these gentlemen. Tell them who
made these tracks."

"You did!" she cried. All about her she could feel the smoothness of
a falling trap.

Mart smiled still more broadly.

"Look here, Olga, don't get so warm over it. You're nervous now.
Tell the gentlemen who made those tracks."

She turned to Munn desperately. "What do you want to know for?" she
asked him.

The sharpness of her voic