on Sunday evening. Just put
your wits to work, my friend. To begin with, Sanson T.'s wife and
daughter were away in St. Louis. That was real convenient. Then the
money disappeared from the thief-proof safe just at the time when it
was to have been paid up to clear off the debt--that was equally
convenient. I'm told that the thieves attacked him when Sanson opened
the door to go out to meeting. But did any one ever know a respectable
citizen go out to meeting with his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and
without his hat? Or would he go out leaving the key of the safe on the
open desk table? Then the stupefying effects of chloroform would not
certainly last more than an hour, although the sickly smell of the drug
would linger about the closed room for quite twelve."

"Say, Kiddie," Rube interrupted, "you've gotten on this yer crime
problem the same's you'd track a wild critter in the woods. Seems ter
me, you've run that critter right into its lair. All you've been
sayin's as clear's the water in the lake. I c'n see the bottom plain,
an' I figure it up as thar wasn't no burglary at all, thar wasn't no
masked men or chloroform. Sanson T. Wrangler made the whole thing up
ter cover his own tracks, an' the only thief in the case was Sanson T.
Wrangler hisself."

"Exactly," nodded Kiddie.

"Shake!" cried Isa Blagg, thrusting out his hand. "You're sure right,
Kiddie; plumb right, you are. You've gotten straight's a die to the
very innards of the problem. The hull evidence supports your theory.
Here's me, a perfessional lawyer, so ter speak, bin puzzlin' my head
over that alleged crime f'r days on end, an' never c'd make top nor
tail of it; an' you, settin' idle at this yer camp fire, have solved it
as easy an' as slick 's you might cipher out a sum in simple
arithmetic."

Kiddie shrugged his shoulders.

"It's merely the application of common sense to a very ordinary
proposition," he said.

"Kiddie don't jump at no rash conclusions," observed Rube Carter.
"Trainin' in scout-craft has sharpened his wits at ev'ry point. He
follers th' evidence of a crime same 's he'd foller on the tracks of a
wild critter of the woods."

"Exactly," Kiddie nodded. "There's no difference."

"He looks at a thing all round an' through an' through 'fore he fixes
up his mind about it," Rube went on, addressing the sheriff. "You an'
me, Isa, we ain't built the same 's Kiddie. We ain't so slick or so
clever at analysin'. Becau