ctive appeared, wrapped in a dressing-gown, with head still
bandaged, and eyes half closed, but mind sufficiently clear to state his
errand.

"Beg pardon," he said; "is Royce here? I can't see very well.--Is that
you, Royce? Look at this."

He held out a crumpled piece of paper.

"Seems to be something, but I can't quite make it out," he said.

Royce took it, glanced over it, cried, "By Jove!" and was out of the
room in a second. The detective went stumbling along after him; he had
to feel his way, being half blinded by his swollen eyelids.

"Take your pistols!" he called out, keeping his hand on the wall all the
way down the passage.

Royce had dropped the paper; Adelaide had instantly destroyed it, and
then she followed the detective.

"What was it?" she asked anxiously.

"Only a line or two, ma'am--from somebody in the town here, I
suppose--saying that one of them distillers, the one, too, that shot
Allison, was hidden in the house of that rascally, deceiving little
minister, up toward Eagle Knob. They're all in league with each other,
ministers or no ministers."

"Who wrote it? How do you know it is true?"

"I dun know who wrote it, and I dun know as it's true. The paper was
throwed into my room, through the winder, when there didn't happen to be
anybody around. It was somebody as had a grudge against this man in
particular, I suppose. 'Twas scrawly writing, and no spelling to speak
of. I brought it to Royce myself, because I wouldn't trust any one to
carry it to him, black or white, confound 'em all!"

The detective had now reached the end of the passage and his endurance;
his hand was covered with whitewash where he had drawn it along the
wall, his head was aching furiously, and his slippers were coming off.
"You had just better go back," he said, not menacingly, but with a dull
desperation, as he sat down on the first step of the stairway which led
down to his room, and held his forehead and the base of his brain
together: they seemed to him two lobes as large as bushel-baskets, and
just ready to split apart.

"I will send some one to you," said Adelaide, departing. She went to her
room, darkened it, and took a long, quiet _siesta_.

* * * * *

Royce dropped his information, _en route_, at the little camp in the
grove, where the trim companies of United States infantry led their
regular orderly life, to the slow wonder of the passing mountaineers.
Who would not be