ws were contracted into a scowl of
apprehension which remained even after she returned to her labors, and
that she was ill at ease was further evidenced by the frequent pauses
she made to cast quick glances toward the dense tanglewood surrounding
the clearing.

At last the grave was dug. The girl climbed out and stood looking down
upon the quilt wrapped thing at her feet. For a moment she stood there
as silent and motionless as the dead. Only the twittering of birds
disturbed the quiet of the wood. Bridge felt a soft hand slipped into
his and slender fingers grip his own, He turned his eyes to see the
boy at his side gazing with wide eyes and trembling lips at the tableau
within the clearing. Involuntarily the man's hand closed tightly upon
the youth's.

And as they stood thus the silence was shattered by a loud and human
sneeze from the thicket not fifty feet from where they stood. Instantly
the girl in the clearing was electrified into action. Like a tigress
charging those who stalked her she leaped swiftly across the clearing
toward the point from which the disturbance had come. There was an
answering commotion in the underbrush as the girl crashed through, a
slender knife gleaming in her hand.

Bridge and his companions heard the sounds of a swift and short pursuit
followed by voices, one masterful, the other frightened and whimpering;
and a moment afterward the girl reappeared dragging a boy with her--a
wide-eyed, terrified, country boy who begged and blubbered to no avail.

Beside the dead man the girl halted and then turned on her captive. In
her right hand she still held the menacing blade.

"What you do there watching me for?" she demanded. "Tell me the truth,
or I kill you," and she half raised the knife that he might profit in
his decision by this most potent of arguments.

The boy cowered. "I didn't come fer to watch you," he whimpered. "I'm
lookin' for somebody else. I'm goin' to be a dee-tectiff, an' I'm
shadderin' a murderer;" and he gasped and stammered: "But not you. I'm
lookin' for another murderer."

For the first time the watchers saw a faint smile touch the girl's lips.

"What other murderer?" she asked. "Who has been murdered?"

"Two an' mebby three in Oakdale last night," said Willie Case more
glibly now that a chance for disseminating gossip momentarily outweighed
his own fears. "Reginald Paynter was murdered an' ol' man Baggs an'
Abigail Prim's missin'. Like es not she's been murdered