CHAPTER I.

Placid and homelike enough were all its surroundings, one would say. It seemed the very last place to look for romance or mystery—the very last place in the world to be confronted by a foul and savage crime. There was not a shadow on the bright, breeze-ruffled mill-pond whereon the ducks were splashing and quacking noisily. Not a willow drooped its mourning branches over the sunny shallows above, or the foaming, rushing, tumbling torrent below the dam. Not a tree with heavy, spreading foliage stood guard between the sunshine and the shores. Nothing but a few pert, sturdy young hickories fringed the banks, bolt upright in the broad glare of the noon-tide, and proclaiming in their very attitude their detestation of all that was vague, dark, or shadowy. There were no beetling cliffs—no firs, no pines, no dark hemlocks—nothing in the least suggestive of gloom or tragedy. The valley lay broad and open. Cosy homesteads and cottages gleamed here and there along the slopes, nestled in little groves of their own. Orchards, a vineyard, many fields of waving, yellowing grain, broad pastures dotted with drowsy sheep and drowsier, clover-fed cattle; bright green patches every now and then where the sugar-maples huddled together in rustling gossip; and smiling farms and winding, well-kept country roads lay north and south. Westward, a few hundred yards, the gleaming bosom of the island-dotted lake into which the mill-stream poured its swirling waters; eastward, a short mile, the roofs and chimneys of the thriving county town; and then, over towards the distant railway, a creamy spire, with the sacred emblem of the cross glinting and shimmering in the sunlight, peeped through the fringe of waving tree-tops. All was quiet, rural beauty. All told of peace, life, contentment, and prosperity this lovely July morning of the centennial year—all save the hush and awe that hung about old 'Mahbin mill.

Over by the waste weir, with musical splash and laughter and faint little clouds of spray, a tumbling sheet of water was disappearing into the cool depths below; but here, in the broad, beaten roadway around the worn threshold, was impressive silence. The busy whir and hum and clatter was all stilled, though elsewhere this had been a bustling Monday morn. Men spoke in low, awe-stricken whispers, and went on tip-toe over the creaking floor within. Peace and contentment, life and prosperity, flooding sunshine, laughing-water, merry-throated birds made glad the scene around; but within was silence and mystery and death. Here, prone on the flour-dusted floor of the old office lay all that was mortal of gray-haired Sam Morrow, the miller, murdered by murder most foul, as one and all could see; and young Dick Graham, his right-hand man for years, had gone, gone no one knew whither.

In all its peaceful history, Nemahbin had known no such sight or sensation as this. Thirty years had the old mill been the rallying-point of the farmers, to the exclusion of the attractions of the tavern in the little town. Morrow was a character—a man who read and remembered, a man who took the papers and had an opinion, backed by good reasoning, of public men and public affairs of the day. He grew to be an authority on many and most subjects, but he never grew to be popular. Morrow had an ugly temper when crossed, a lashing, venomous tongue when angered, and, of late, there had been growing up among the farmers who drove thither with their grain a suspicion that old Sam, in his grasping, money-loving greed had become unscrupulous. In this there was rank injustice. Crabbed and ill-tempered as the man had often been, surly and rough of speech as he had become, there did not live a more rigidly honest man—his word was his bond. His own dealings were beyond question, and six months before his death no man within a thirty-mile radius of Nemahbin had ever been heard to hint at such a thing as sharp practice at 'Mahbin mill.

He had not been a happy man. His home life had been far from sweet and peaceful. Ten years ago his patient and devoted wife had died—worn out, some neighbors were good enough to say, by his outbreaks of fury and his cutting injustice. But he had loved her, loved her well, and he mourned her bitterly. Two children she had left him: one a son, high-spirited, impulsive, and wilful, between whom and his father there waged incessant feud while he was at home, and between whom and that same father there passed frequent letters of most loving description when the boy was placed at boarding-school. Young Sam had been liberally provided for when he went away, and his pocket-money was unstinted. The boy was not vicious, but the restraints of school discipline seemed to tempt him from one mad exploit to another, and, after two years of sorely tried patience, the authorities of the school requested his withdrawal. Sam was fifteen then, a bright, quick-witted fellow, a leader in all boyish sports and mischief, and immensely popular among the farm folk around Nemahbin. His chum and intimate friend from early boyhood had been Dick Graham; like himself, an only son of an idolizing mother, but, unlike himself, compelled to labor for her support. When young Sam had been sent away to school after his mother's death, the old man was noticed on several consecutive days hovering uncertainly about the little country store where his boy's friend was working from morn till night doing hard jobs and thankfully carrying home his scanty wages at the end of the week. One day he blustered in on the "boss" with brief ceremony:

"Murphy," said he, "you work that boy too hard, and pay him too little. If you don't double his wages, I will, and take him out to the mill to boot." Murphy was vastly angered at the proceeding, and Murphy's adherents voted around the fire that night that old Sam Morrow had no business to be "spilin' the market for boys," and undermining other folk's concerns in that way; but the miller stuck to his word; Murphy would not agree, and at the end of the month Dick Graham moved out to the mill, where his bright face, and cheery, alert ways, soon deepened the interest old Sam felt in him for his own boy's sake. Then he moved Mrs. Graham out there, and placed her and her boy in the cottage near the mill-house, as his own home was termed. And then the minister of the pretty church over towards the railway had come over to call on Mr. Morrow—who was not of the fold—and to shake hands with him, and when he went away he bent down and kissed pretty little Nellie—the miller's only daughter, and his darling—and had asked that his own little girls might come over to make her acquaintance and to gather pond lilies. All this had happened ten years back, when Nellie was a blue-eyed, sunny-haired child, and Sam was in his first turbulent year at school.

Little Nell had to go to her own school very soon. It lay across country over where the minister lived, and many was the time in the rough spring weather when Dick Graham had to carry her over the rushing brooks that burst across the roadway from the deep-drifted slopes of snow. He was a splendid, sturdy boy of fifteen then—manly, truthful, independent; and loyally he strove to serve his benefactor in the clattering old mill, and still more loyally he watched over the bonny child who seemed that master's all in all.

Things went smoothly enough, in all conscience, a year or two. Dick trudged off to evening school during the wintry season, and had found a good friend in that same minister, who lent him books and helped him along in his studies; but then Sam came home, virtually expelled from school, and then began a series of domestic troubles between father and son that brought sorrow and anxiety to all. Old Sam in his wrath would taunt the boy with having disgraced him, and young Sam in his flush of temper would threaten to quit his father's home for good and all. Dick strove to reason with his friend, but the boy was sensitive and stung to the quick. A kind word, a loving touch from his father would have melted his heart in an instant. He would have gone back to school full of apology and promises to amend; but his father's eyes were averted and his tongue edged with fire. Sam swore it was of no use to try and be patient. Then Dick went to the minister in his perplexity, and that worthy gentleman came strolling over to the mill, and looking over the ground, so to speak. His was a diplomatic mind, and it had reason to be. It was easy to win the son's confidence. He, Dick, and Sam junior soon formed a trio of fast friends, and before long another scheme was broached; and, with some surly misgiving on old Morrow's part, Sam was sent to another and larger school. It was the old man's hobby that his boy should be well educated. But a plethora of pocket-money, said the authorities of the first establishment, had been the cause of his downfall, and now the old man sternly refused to give his son a cent. All his expenses were to be met and paid, and the principal of the new school was to give him a certain trifling sum on holidays. There was no known trouble for a year as the result of this arrangement. The boy felt that he had amends to make and so did his best. A widowed sister of old Morrow had come to his home and taken charge of it and little Nell, and there was another era of comparative peace.

But to young Sam the school life was far from bright. Stinted now where he had formerly been indulged, he found himself forced into a position greatly contrasted with the prominence and popularity he had enjoyed among the youngsters of the year before. He was beginning to learn the lesson that sooner or later saddens and often embitters the brightest minds—the lesson that even here in free America money is the standard of even personal value. It was not so with Western boys before the war. Money was a thing well-nigh unknown to them, but the "flush" days brought with them new ideas, and the ideas stuck fast long after the flush days had gone. Sam Morrow found that he was no longer the pet of the "best set." Money and reckless good-nature had won it for him in the old school; good-nature unbacked by money was no help here at the new. Sam said nothing to his father, but his letters to Dick became more frequent. He stood to his work like a little man, and despite the sorrow and loneliness of that year he came home the better for it all. He had made excellent progress. His teacher had praised him; the minister put him through his paces and extolled him; and old Morrow, proud and pleased, wanted to unbend and send the boy back for his second year with some substantial token of his pleasure; but stubborn pride on both sides seemed to stand between father and son. Sam junior would ask nothing, and the old man's reply to the minister's well-meant suggestion was, "Well, if the boy wants money now let him come and say so." And this Sam swore he would not do, and so it ended.

Next year there was a catastrophe. Sam was now a stalwart, handsome young fellow of seventeen. "Ready to go to college," said his teachers. One day old Morrow received a telegraphic despatch begging him to come at once to the school. He went, and in four days was home again with Sam and a broken heart. Small sums of money had been missed from time to time by various pupils of the school. Suspicion had fastened on a sharp boy who was believed to spend more money than he legitimately received. A watch was kept, a search was made, and Sam Morrow was detected passing at a store some of the marked money. Questioned as to where he got it, he for the time declined to answer, until told that he was suspected of the theft. He then confessed that it was part of a small sum Fielding, the sharp boy aforementioned, paid him from time to time for translating his Cæsar for him. Fielding promptly, and with much apparent indignation, denied the story. Receiving such assistance and passing off another boy's work as his own was an offence for which a pupil was always severely punished. The case rested as a question of veracity between the two boys, with the odds vastly in favor of Sam—for a few hours only, pending further investigation, but that investigation was fatal. At least twelve dollars of the missing money was found secreted in Sam's books and clothing. He had furiously denied everything; he protested in vain that he had no idea how it came there, but his lonely, solitary ways were remembered, his habits of hanging about the dormitories apparently at study when the boys were at play—and there was no one to stand up for him. Old Morrow came, listened in crushed silence, and took his boy home. Honest to the backbone himself, he was sore stricken to think that his son should steal. He had heard first the stories of the teachers and pupils before being ushered into the presence of the accused. All hot impulse and fury, he had come upon his lonely and friendless son, and when the poor fellow, bursting into tears in his misery and excitement of the moment, had thrown his arms about his father's neck, sobbing, "I have not done it, I am innocent," he had sternly unclasped the pleading hands and ordered him to prepare at once to go home with him. Sam seemed utterly stunned by his father's refusal to hear a word. He was almost crazed with misery when he reached home. The minister and Dick listened to his story and believed it. Old Sam shut himself up; refused to see any one for some days, until Nellie's tears and petitions secured a brief interview for the worthy churchman. This time the latter was not diplomatic. He believed the boy wronged from beginning to end. He told old Morrow in so many words that his pride and stubbornness were sin and shame, and roused the old man to such a pitch of wrath that he shrieked out his hope that the son who had disgraced him might never come before his sight again—and he never did. Sam Morrow heard the furious words. Pride came to his aid; and never saying a word of farewell to the friends whom he knew would strive to dissuade him, but clinging long to sweet twelve-year-old Nellie, and sobbing as though his heart would break, Sam left his father's roof that night. Five years had passed away, and not one word was ever heard from him. The old man's curse had indeed come home to rest; his fading eyes were never more to be blessed by the sight of his son.

But this was only half of his misery. The minister left the house with his blood up; went forthwith to that school and was closeted some hours with his old friend the principal. Sam's side of the story had an intelligent advocate; a revulsion of feeling had set in; boys and men both began to recall good points about Morrow that had not occurred to them before, and queer things about that fellow Fielding. In less than a month after Sam's disappearance there came a letter to old Morrow one day which he read in gasping amaze, and then fell prone and senseless on the floor of the very office where he lay now prone and dead. Sam's story was true; Fielding had confessed even to having stolen the money and hiding portions of it in Sam's property, to divert suspicion from himself.

But now came a long illness in which old Morrow lay at death's door. He raved for his boy. He cursed his own mad folly and injustice. He did everything that could be suggested to bring the wanderer home again. The story went into the papers. Advertisements were circulated through the Western States. Even detectives were called upon, but to no purpose. Sam never returned. The old man, bent and sorrowing, but with as fiery a temper and an even more envenomed tongue, seemed to live only for Nellie's sake and the hope of once more greeting his boy. Nellie herself had spent some years at boarding-school and had grown into a lovely girl of eighteen. Dick Graham was a fine, manly fellow, good to look at and better to trust and tie to. "Too good a man to stay grubbing for old Morrow at the mill," said the neighbors. "Far too valuable and intelligent for the humble stipend that is paid him," said the minister. "Old Morrow" had grown miserly and grasping, said Public Opinion—and it was true. He had no confidant; he had no friends to whom he could open his heart. In dumb sorrow he shrank from the world, ever looking with haggard eyes for some trace of the lost boy whom his injustice and cruelty had driven into exile. Nellie was his one comfort. He gloried in her budding beauty, but he meant to make a lady of her, and even during her school vacation she did not always come home. It was too lonely and sad a spot for one so bright as she, said the old man, and he willingly permitted her to visit school friends in their city homes, and went month after month to see her—and bear to her, and the friends she liked, huge and uncouth offerings of candy or flowers in his efforts to show his appreciation of their interest in his precious child. Nellie was a princess in his eyes, but others saw in her a somewhat spoiled and over-petted beauty. That is—some others—most others. There was one who worshipped her as even her father never dreamed of doing; one to whom her faintest wish was law; one to whom her lightest word was sacred, and to whom her smile, or the touch of her little hand meant heaven. People wondered how Dick Graham could consent to hang on there at 'Mahbin mill, "grubbing" for that grasping old Morrow like a slave. Poor Dick! Slave he was, as many another had been, but not the miller's. He could and would have broken with him three years before, when the death of his invalid mother left the young fellow independent of all claim—but he could not and would not break the tie that bound him to 'Mahbin and the dusty, dingy, red-shingled old mill. He idolized Nellie Morrow, and she held his life in her hands.

She had learned to be very fond of Dick in the year that followed her brother's disappearance. She had grown into his heart the year before she went to school, and when she came home from her first vacation, child though she was, she knew it and gloried in it. Each year added to her maidenly graces, and to his thraldom, and the very winter that preceded this centennial summer Dick had brought her home from a sleighing-party one night fairly wild with joy and pride. In answer to his impetuous and trembling words she had murmured to him that he was dearer to her than anybody else could be, and he believed it, though Miss Nellie had grave doubts in her own mind as to the truth of that statement even when she made it. Still, it was very nice to have the best-looking and smartest young man in and around 'Mahbin for her own, when she was home, but he was not quite to be compared with the exquisites she saw in the city streets, or the brothers of some of her school friends. And there was one—oh! so romantic a fellow! whom she met that very winter in Chicago when spending Thanksgiving holidays with a schoolmate; a dark-eyed, splendid-looking man, tall, straight, athletic, with bronzed features and such a strange history! He was much older than these school-girls. He must have been thirty or thereabouts, and was own cousin to her friend. He had been a soldier when very young; had run away from home and fought in the great war, and had been a wanderer almost ever since; had been to California and to sea, and—they did not really know where else. Nellie was too young to notice that he had not been cordially welcomed by the old people on his arrival at the home of her friend. He had been wild and reckless, had "Cousin Harry," and papa did not like him, was the explanation of subsequent coldness she could not help seeing. But to the girls he was perfect. He had so mournful, mysterious, pathetic a manner. He was trying so hard to find some steady employment—was so eager to settle down—and he soon became so interested in Nellie, so devoted to her in fact, and the very day they returned to school—how it came about she never knew exactly, his sympathetic manner did it, perhaps,—she told him about her brother and his utter disappearance, and then she wondered at the sudden eager light in his eyes, the color that shot into his face through bronze and all, and the unmistakable agitation with which he had asked the question, "What was his name?" For an instant she believed he must have met Sam and known him, but this he denied, denied even when he asked to see his photograph.

Then "Cousin Harry" had been searching in his questions about Nellie, her father, his age, his property, her prospects. It was easy enough to extract all manner of information from her school-girl friend, and, when Nellie went back to school, she had reason to believe there was something very real in Mr. Henry Frost's decided interest in her.

She knew Dick loved her. She had given him every reason to hope that she was growing to care for him; yet before the Christmas holidays she twice had more reason to remember Harry Frost's devoted manner—and when she started home for those very holidays he was on the train.

It was Christmas eve that sent Dick Graham home happier than he had ever been in his life, but in one short week the happiness had fled. Mr. Frost had taken up his abode at the little tavern in the village; had acquired some strange influence over old Morrow, and was playing the devoted to Nellie in a way she too plainly liked. Early in January she went back to school, but Frost remained. He had indeed gained a powerful influence over the lonely old man—no one knew how—for Morrow invited the stranger to his house to stay awhile, and, before January was over, the tall, dark-eyed, dark-haired, athletic man was occupying a desk in the office of the old mill.

There was great speculation and conjecture and gossip all around 'Mahbin over this matter. The mill had been doing rather less business than usual; no additional men were needed. The office required little attention, for old Morrow had kept his own books and done his own letter-writing for years. If a clerk were needed, why take in a stranger whom nobody knew, they urged, when there was young Graham, whom everybody liked and trusted? And yet, before spring had fairly set in, old Morrow had turned over his bookkeeping and writing to this Mr. Frost; and though the key of the little safe was never intrusted to any hand but that of the master, and though there was one desk no one but Morrow himself could open, Frost was soon as much at home in the mill as though he had lived there a lifetime.

When the brief Easter holiday came an odd thing happened. Nellie Morrow declined to go with any of her school-friends. She wrote that she wanted to see dear old 'Mahbin again, and delightedly the miller brought her home. It was a week of torment to poor Dick Graham; a holiday that proved far from satisfactory to Morrow, for he saw with sudden start that his bonny Nell was becoming vastly interested in Mr. Frost, whom he was beginning to distrust.

When Frost had come to Nemahbin, in December, he had sought the old miller, requested a confidential interview, told him, with all apparent frankness, of his meeting with Nellie at the home of his uncle, near Chicago, and of her telling him the sad story of Sam's disappearance.

"Mr. Morrow," said he, "I believe I met and knew your son on the Pacific coast. What is more, I believe I can find him." The miller knew that Frost's relations were people of high position, but did not know that the man before him was very far from standing well in their esteem. But he had been imposed upon more than once by people who sought to make money from his eagerness to obtain any clue to the whereabouts of his missing boy. He closely questioned Frost, and was speedily convinced that there was no imposition here. He had known him, and known him well; for, even in little tricks of speech and manner, Frost could describe Sam to the life. The old man's first impulse was to take Frost with him and start for the Pacific coast at once; but the latter pointed out to him that the journey to mid Arizona was very long and expensive, and that he had reason to believe Sam had left there and gone with miners to Montana. He had friends and correspondents; he would write; he did write, and showed Morrow the letters, and they went apparently to Prescott, Arizona, but not for three months did answers come; and then they were vague and indefinite, and meantime the old man's heart had been torn with suspense and anxiety, and he rebelled at the restriction placed upon him by Frost, that he should admit to nobody that they were on the trail of his absent son—that Frost had known him well "in the mines," as he said, though by another name. He disliked it still more that there was so much of his own life while in the distant West of which Frost gave varying accounts, and always avoided speaking; and now it was plain that he was "making up" to Nellie; it was plain that she was far from averse to the attentions of this handsome and distinguished fellow, with his air of reserve and mystery; and it was plain that poor Dick Graham was both miserable and suspicious. He had been set against Frost from the very first.

Still there was a certain element with whom he had attained popularity—the young men about the village, and especially those of the large and thriving town over on the railway. He was a superb horseman, and had ridden with grace and ease a horse that poor Dick had pronounced utterly unmanageable. Then, one night during the Easter holidays, a large party of the young people of Nemahbin had driven over to town to attend the ball given by a local military organization. Nellie was the belle on the occasion, and was coquetting promiscuously with the officers and the members of the company, evidently to the annoyance of that hitherto unrivalled Mr. Frost. Even gloomy Dick Graham found some comfort in this, but his comfort gave way to dismay when, after a brief and rather clumsily executed drill of his command, the captain had suddenly turned over his sword to Mr. Frost, and the latter, as though by previous arrangement, stepped forward, and, with all the ease of an expert tactician and drill-master, and with stirring, martial voice and bearing, put the company through one evolution after another with surprising rapidity, and finally retired, the applauded and envied hero of the occasion. Nellie had monopolized him the rest of the evening, and all men held him in great esteem. Questioned as to his wonderful proficiency, he laughingly answered, "Why, I soldiered through the last two years of the war in the volunteers, and saw a good deal of the regulars afterwards, out West—that is, I used to watch them with great interest," and quickly changed the subject.

But Dick Graham's jealous eyes—and no eyes are so sharp as those whose scrutiny is so whetted—marked that he had changed color, and that his manner was nervous and embarrassed. From that day on he watched Frost like a cat.

June came in with sunshine and roses, and a great centennial celebration and exhibition in the far East, and a great convention for the nomination of a president, and the country was so taken up with these stirring events that, when June went out, precious little attention was paid to an affair that, a year earlier or later, would have thrilled the continent with horror. In one short, sharp, desperate struggle of a quarter of an hour, Custer, the daring cavalry leader of the great war—Custer, the yellow-haired, the brave, the dashing, the hero of romance and fiction and soldierly story—Custer and his whole command had been swept out of existence by an overwhelming force of Indians.

Nellie was home again, and Frost was now occupying a room in Sam Morrow's little house. The old man had come to Dick but a short time before her return, and, with something of his old kind and confidential way, had said to him that Frost was to remain with them but a few weeks longer, and that he was unwilling to have him under the same roof with Nellie even during that little while. Morrow had begun to look on Frost as a liar. He felt certain that he had known his lost boy, but doubted now his pretensions as to his ability to find him. Indeed, Frost admitted that he had lost the clue, and it was at this time that Morrow at last told the minister of the matter. That he was being deceived in more ways than one the old man was convinced, yet had nothing tangible to work upon; but his worst suspicions had not really done justice to the facts in the case. Morrow would have killed the man could he have known the truth—that he knew well just where the missing son was to be found, and would not tell—and that, virtually robbing the old miller of one child, he had now well-nigh robbed him of the other. Between him and Nellie letters had secretly passed, at regular intervals, ever since the Christmas vacation. She was fascinated, yet she, too, distrusted. He swore that he loved her—longed to make her his wife—yet forbade her confessing to her father that such was the case. More than that, he had cautioned her to look for an indifferent manner on his part on her return. He explained that her father disliked him, and would send him away instantly if their love were suspected. He even urged her to encourage Dick Graham. He was playing a desperate game, indeed. He had hoped to win the father's confidence with the daughter's love, and secure his consent—and blessing—and fortune; but, as matters stood, he knew that, though he might win Nellie, it would be in defiance of the father's will, and that meant disinheritance and banishment for both.

By every art in his power he had striven, of late, to curry favor with Graham, but without success. Dick was coldly civil, and would have been thankful for an excuse at open rupture. He suspected Frost of having won Nellie away from him, but could prove absolutely nothing. He believed him to be a mere adventurer, and had urged the miller to write to those connections of whom he had boasted—the Chicago relatives—and ascertain his history; but Morrow had sternly silenced him with the information that he knew it all—at least he knew enough. "Mr. Frost is here for a purpose, and it is sufficient that I have brought him here," was the old man's reply to further objections, and so poor Dick felt that nothing more was to be said.

But with Nellie's return came a revival of hope. She was sweeter, prettier than ever, and her manner to Dick was now as gentle, and even confidential, as it had been careless and indifferent during the late winter. She came home about the 15th of June, and for the fortnight that followed it was Dick, not Mr. Frost, whom she seemed to favor. Graham hardly dared believe the evidence of his senses, but was too blissful to analyze matters. The old man, of late, had taken to spending some hours in the evening down at his office in the mill, and Frost was generally closeted there with him. Very surly and sad and irascible the miller had grown. He was bitter and unjust to everybody. Several times he had angrily reprimanded Graham in the presence of customers and mill-hands for things that were entirely of Frost's doing. There had been errors in the accounts, over which the farmers had growled not a little; and one day, bursting from a group of men who had been calling his attention to a matter of the kind, the old man stamped furiously into the office, shut the door after him with a bang, and was heard to say, in loud and angry tones, to some one, "Now the next time this happens, by God, you go!"

A moment after, Dick Graham came from the office into the mill, and that night it was told in Nemahbin that the old man had threatened to discharge him. He and Graham seemed to get along very badly, and no man could explain it.

But, gaining hope from Nellie's smiles, Dick was ready to bear up against the old man's fit of rage. At heart, he knew the miller liked and trusted him. There was much he could not fathom, but was content to wait and watch. Meantime he kept his eye on Frost—noted how nervous and ill at ease he was becoming, marked his labored attempts to win his friendship, and withheld it the more guardedly.

One day, about a week after Nellie's return, business required that he and Frost should go together to the neighboring town on the railway. They were standing by the elevator on a side-track with a knot of young men, when a train came rumbling in from the East, and as it drew up at the station it was seen that the rear car was filled with soldiers.

"Hello!" shouted one of the party. "Let's go and have a look at the regulars." Dick started with the rest, but suddenly stopped. An indefinable sensation prompted him to look around for Frost, and Frost was nowhere to be seen. Turning quickly back, he entered the open doorway of the little warehouse, and there, in a dark corner, peering through a knot-hole over towards the station, was his mysterious companion. Dick approached him on tiptoe, and clapped him sharply on the shoulder.

"Come, man! come and see the soldiers; some of your friends may be there."

White as death was Frost's face as he turned with fearful start. Then, seeing it was Graham, and suspecting it was a trick, he flushed crimson, and angrily, though with trembling lips, replied,

"My friends! what do you mean? How the devil should I have friends among them? Go yourself, if you want to see them, but leave me alone."

And Graham turned away, more than ever convinced that, in some way, Frost's knowledge of soldiering was derived from personal experiences he wished to conceal.

A week more, and he had another opportunity of testing it. Going to the village for the mail, he found a group of men eagerly listening to one of their number who was reading aloud the terrible details of the Custer massacre. Graham heard it all in silence, got the mill mail, and walked thoughtfully homeward. Old Morrow was seated with Nellie in the porch, and Frost, hat in hand, was standing at the foot of the steps, looking up at them as he spoke deferentially to the miller.

"Any news, Dick?" asked the miller, shortly.

"Terrible news, sir!" said Graham, eying Frost closely as he spoke. "General Custer and his regiment, the Seventh Cavalry, were butchered by the Indians a fortnight ago."

Frost fairly staggered. A wild light shot into his face; his hat fell from his nerveless hand.

"I do not believe a word of it!" he gasped. "It's a lie! They never could! Give me the paper," he demanded, hoarsely; but Graham coolly avoided his attempt to seize it and handed the paper to Morrow. Eying him closely, as Dick had done, the miller tore the wrapper with provoking deliberation, and finally gave the contents to Frost. He had partially recovered self-control by this time, but his hands shook like palsy as he unfolded the paper.

"My God! it's true!—mainly true, at least," he gasped, while drops of sweat started to his forehead. "All with him were killed. It has knocked the breath out of me. I knew so many of them out there, you know."

"In Arizona?" asked Morrow.

"Ye-yes—Arizona!" he stammered. "It tells here what officers were killed, but does not give the names of the men. I wish it did. I wish I knew. They are the ones I saw most of." Then he stopped short, as though he had said too much. And all the time both Morrow and Graham had never ceased their rigid scrutiny, and he knew it. He hurriedly went away.

CHAPTER III

That night Nellie was fitful and constrained in manner. Dick went home restless and unhappy. It was very late, but there was the light burning brightly down at the office.

"Who are there?" he asked the lad who did odd jobs around the miller's house, and who slept in Graham's cottage.

"Mr. Morrow and Frost. Gosh! how the old man has been cussin' him. He cusses everybody round here now, don't he? I heerd down in the village you was going to quit."

Graham made no reply, but turned gloomily into his own room.

Next morning Frost came to him looking very pale and nervous.

"Graham," he said, "I want to ask a great favor. I must go to Chicago, and I want twenty dollars. Will you lend me that much? I will give it to you again next week."

"Why do you come to me?" asked Graham, shortly.

"The old man and I are at loggerheads, and—I know he would not let me have it. Once in Chicago, and I can get money, you shall have it—sure."

Graham hesitated. He had saved but little from the small stipend allowed him, but a thought struck him that the surest way to get rid of an objectionable acquaintance was to lend him money. It might keep Frost from returning. Stepping to his worn old desk, he unlocked and opened it, took from an inner compartment a small roll of bills, counted out twenty dollars, and handed it to Frost without a word.

"You think you won't get this back, Graham, but you will," said the latter, as he eagerly took it and went away. This was a Tuesday morning. On the following Sunday Dick Graham was amazed to see Frost standing at the miller's gate talking earnestly with Nellie, who dropped her head and scurried into the house as she caught sight of his approaching form.

"Back, you see!" said Frost, holding out his hand, which Dick unwillingly took. He had returned a new man. His clothes, that had begun to grow shabby, were replaced by new ones of stylish cut and make; his eyes were bright, his color high, his voice ringing and animated; his manner was brisk and cheery, yet nervous.

"Have you seen Mr. Morrow?" was all Graham could find to say by the way of welcome. "He is down at the mill, and wants you."

It had been a wretched five days for Dick. Twice he had surprised Nellie in tears that she could not explain, and the old man had treated him with gross injustice on several occasions. All his old fury of manner had been redoubled. He openly accused Dick of having furnished money to aid Frost in getting away when he knew him to be a cheat and an impostor; knew that Frost had garbled the accounts and been stealing at the mill, and in all probability he was no better than an accomplice. Twice Dick's indignation and wrath had given way to angry retort, and the story had gone far and wide around Nemahbin that the old man and the young one were bitter enemies, and Dick had openly vowed he could stand it no longer. Then Nellie, who had been coquetting with his hopes and fears, had once again plunged him into the depths. He loved her blindly, madly, poor fellow, and was bent as she willed, but the time had come when he could brook his ills no longer; and that Sunday evening, standing by the rushing stream down below the dam, and moodily throwing stone after stone into the dark waters, Dick Graham had determined to face his fate, and have the matter ended then and there.

He was to take her to the village for evening service. She and her aunt quite frequently spent the night with friends in 'Mahbin in preference to coming back to the mill through the darkness, and this bright July day had turned to night, dark, cloudy, overcast, with heavy fog-wreaths whirling through the cheerless air. The rain came pattering down as they left the church, and hospitable friends urged their stay. Ten minutes later Dick was standing in the bright light of a parlor, face to face with the girl who had been his idol from boyhood until now. They were alone. She saw in his face that the crisis had come, and was pale and nervous as he was pale and determined, yet she strove to assume a light and laughing manner.

"What is it, Dick? You have been solemn as an undertaker for a whole week, and to-night you are like—I don't know what."

Quickly he seized her hands, and held them firmly against every effort to draw them away. His heart beat like a hammer, his eyes were flaming with the fire of his love, his lips quivered and twitched with the intensity of his emotion.

"Nellie," he said, "I can stand it no longer! That man is back again; I saw you with him to-day. I—oh!—time and again I have told you how I loved you. It is more than love—it is worship, almost. It has been so ever since you were a little girl and I carried you to school. You did care for me—you know you did—until this fellow came here and made us all wretched. Nellie, I will have an answer to-night. I will know if you love me; tell me, tell me now." It was no longer an imploring prayer, it was a demand.

Struggle though she might, she could not free herself. His eyes seemed to burn into hers, and she shrank from their wild gaze as though they stung to her very soul.

"Answer me," he said. "You told me you loved me last Christmas. Do you love me now?"

"Oh, Dick, I—I didn't know. I could not tell," she gasped; "I thought I loved you, but—"

"But now you know you love him, is it?" he almost hissed. "Do you know what I think of him? He is a scoundrel, a man without home or name. He has a history he dare not tell; he lies every time he answers a question; he wants to marry you because you will be rich, but that's all."

"You shall not speak of him so," she interrupted in wrath and indignation. "He is a gentleman, and he does love me, and all you say of him is false. I know he has been unhappy, unfortunate—"

"He has been more than that, I'll be bound," sneered Graham, all bitter, jealous anger now. "He is a criminal of some kind—mark my words."

"How dare you?" she cried; "oh, how dare you? He would crush you if you would dare speak so to him. I will never forgive you—never. I never want to see or speak to you again—"

"What do you say?" he gasped, livid with pain and misery.

"I never want to see or speak to you again," she repeated, though her eyes quailed before the dumb agony of his. For a moment there was dead silence. Then with one long look in her paling face he said, slowly, almost humbly:

"I take you at your word. Life has been hell to me here for a long time, and you—you, whom I loved—have driven me from the only home I ever had."

One instant more and he was gone, leaving her sobbing wildly, she hardly knew why.

And early next morning came the fearful news that her father lay murdered at the mill.

A week of intense excitement followed. Not only in Nemahbin was the mysterious death of old Morrow the one subject of conversation, but all through the surrounding counties people talked of nothing else. By sunset of that beautiful Monday the news had spread far and wide; the reporters of the city journals were already on the spot, and by Tuesday night the verdict of the coroner's jury had gone forth and the officers of the law were in search of the criminal, whose name flashed over the humming wires from one ocean to another. Richard Graham stood accused of the murder of his employer, and Richard Graham had gone, no one knew whither.

But there were those who could not and would not believe it of him, and foremost among them was the minister. The evidence against him was mainly circumstantial; the principal accuser was Frost, and the chain of circumstances that linked Graham with the crime were substantially as follows:

The boy who worked around the mill-house and slept in the second story of the Graham's cottage testified that about half an hour before sunset Sunday evening he heard old Morrow "cussing and swearing" at somebody down in the mill, while he was going out to drive the cows home; didn't see who it was, but ten minutes afterwards as he came back he saw Graham pitching stones into the stream down below the mill, "looking queer;" called to him twice, but Graham did not answer; supposed he was mad at the old man for cussing him so—they had had lots of trouble for a week; heard the old man tell him he was going to get rid of him if he didn't do different.

That night he (the witness) went out in the country a piece and did not come home until half-past ten. It was all dark around the mill when he got back. It had been raining, but the sky was brighter then, and as he passed the south door he was surprised to see it open. The old man generally locked it and went home early. He was just going to go and shut it when a man came out. It "skeered" him because the old man had given him fits for being out late and lying abed in the morning, so he stopped short to wait until he got away. The man shut and locked the door, and walked up the road ahead of him, and then he saw that it was not the old man, but young Graham, and that Mr. Graham was going straight up to the mill-house, so he cut across to the cottage and got in soft as he could. Yes, it might have been eleven o'clock by that time, and he did not want Mr. Frost, or Mr. Graham either, to know he was out so late. It was all dark at the mill-house, and all dark at the cottage, but Mr. Frost heard him and called him into his room and asked for a dipper of water. Mr. Frost was in bed and asked him what time it was, and said he had been asleep, but waked up with a headache; told him he did not know the time; didn't want him to know it was so late, 'cause he might tell the old man. Mr. Frost asked him where Dick was, and just then they heard Dick coming up the front steps, and the witness went up to his own room. Heard them talking down-stairs for a little while, but could not understand what they were saying; did not listen particularly; went to sleep, and slept a good while; was awakened by hearing some noise in Dick's room, which was directly under his—sounded like something glass being broken, but everything was quiet right off, and he thought he might have dreamed it. Next thing he knowed it was morning, and Mandy, the cook over at the mill-house, was calling to him from the bottom of the stairs to get up right off—the master hadn't come home all night, and there was people waitin' down at the mill. Dick's room was open and the bed hadn't been slept on, and his clothes and things were all thrown all round on the floor; it looked queer, she said; he was gone, too; ran down as quick as he could dress and called Mr. Frost, who was asleep in bed and did not wake easy; called him three or four times and banged on the door, and at last opened it and called him louder; then he woke up slowly and wanted to know the matter; told him Mandy said Mr. Morrow had not been home and that Dick was not there, and there was farmers with wheat at the mill. He said go and open the mill and he would be down in a minute; told him that Dick had the key and had locked the mill late last night; saw him do it. Mr. Frost jumped right up in bed excited like and said, "You saw him do it! When, where were you?" and so had to tell him about Dick's being there, coming out of the mill late as nearly eleven o'clock. Then Mandy came back and said she found the key hanging on the peg inside the hall-door, and witness took it and went down and opened the south door. The office window-shade was down and the office door on the east side was shut, and so it was kinder dark, but he and the two men waiting there went right through the mill into the office, and there they found the old man dead on the floor, with lots of blood streaming from his head. It skeered him awful, and they ran out. Then Mr. Frost came, and he was pale, and said, "My God, what an awful thing!" and they sent right to 'Mahbin for Dr. Green, and the mayor and constable; and that was all he knowed.

Doctor Green's testimony, divested of professional technicalities, was to the effect that the miller had been killed at least six or eight hours, and that death was the result of the gun-shot wound through the head. The bullet was found imbedded in the skull at the back of the head, and had entered under the left eye. The face was burned and blackened by powder. No other wound or hurt was found upon the body. The doctor had arrived at the mill about 6.45 A.M., accompanied by Mr. Lowrie, the mayor of Nemahbin, an old friend of the deceased. When they arrived, Mr. Frost was in charge of the premises, and stated that no one had entered the office since the moment he had arrived at the spot.

Mr. Lowrie testified to coming with the doctor; being received by Mr. Frost and ushered into the office. The deceased was then lying on his face with his feet near the window. There was much blood on the floor, and spattered on the legs of an office chair that stood close by the head. No weapon of any kind was found in the office, and the object of the murder was explained at a glance; the desk was rifled, the safe was open, and while the papers therein were found undisturbed, the cash drawer, in which it was known that the deceased generally kept a good deal of money, was empty. Other testimony established the fact that he had as much as five hundred dollars in the drawer on the previous Saturday. In presence of the mayor, constable, Mr. Frost, and one or two neighbors, the bullet had been cut out from behind by the doctor. It was slightly flattened, and in shape, and in its exact weight as subsequently determined, it corresponded exactly with those of a "five-shooting" revolver of peculiar make known as "the Avenger." To Mr. Lowrie's knowledge only two pistols of that kind were owned in that neighborhood, and both had been bought by him two years before at a time when there was a scare about mad dogs. One he still owned, and it was now at home, locked up in his desk; the other was Richard Graham's, and he had seen it in his possession less than a week ago.

Mr. Frost's testimony, given with much emotion and apparent reluctance, was to this effect: His first knowledge of the murder was Monday morning about six o'clock, when summoned to the mill by the tidings that Mr. Morrow had not been home all night. Going to the east entrance, he found the boy, Schaffer, and two young farmers, frightened and excited over what they had seen in the office. He went in at once, followed by them, and saw at a glance that murder had been done, though his first thought was suicide. He merely turned the body enough to see that the wound was in the face, and to satisfy himself and the others that no pistol was near, and then, pointing to the fact that the safe and desk were both open, he ordered everybody out and closed the door until the arrival of the officials from Nemahbin.

Questioned as to his own movements the previous night, he said that after supper, when Graham drove the ladies to town, he himself had gone home and read an hour, but, feeling drowsy, had gone to bed, waking up some hours later with a headache on hearing the boy coming in. The boy said he didn't know the time, but it must have been eleven o'clock, and just then Graham came up the steps and the boy went to his own room; witness called out to him twice and got no answer, and at last, thinking it queer that Graham did not go to bed, but kept moving briskly about, he rose and went into the front room in his night-shirt, and found Graham packing a big satchel he had, and rummaging through the clothes on the pegs. Asked him what was the matter, and Graham hardly noticed him—merely said he was going away awhile; could not help noticing how queer and strange he looked, and how oddly he behaved; he was very pale, and muttered to himself every now and then; asked him twice if he had any reason for going, and when he would return, but only got evasive answers and averted looks; knew that there had been ugly words between the deceased and Graham very often during the month past, and that there was an angry altercation between them down at the mill just before supper-time; the deceased had told him that he was going to discharge Graham; he was getting too insolent and rebellious to suit him; Graham hardly ate anything at supper, and the old man did not come up to the house until after they had driven off to church. That was the last he saw of him alive—as he passed the cottage on his way to the mill-house. Asked as to whether anything of unusual or suspicious nature had occurred during the day or evening, Frost said that one thing struck him as queer. Graham's revolver hung habitually at the head of his bed, and when he concluded to go to bed that evening he went into Graham's room to look at the clock and saw that his pistol was gone. It had been there during the day, and he never knew him to carry it before. Asked if he saw it in Graham's possession Sunday night, he replied that he saw it sticking from the hip pocket of his trousers; that Graham had his coat off and was washing his hands at the time. One other ugly circumstance was noted: Graham had been burning a lot of papers and things in the stove before being interrupted. When the stove was examined in the morning some buttons were found, charred and partially destroyed in the ashes, but they were clearly identified as the buttons of the canvas overalls Graham wore around the mill—which were missing—and behind the stove was found a fine cambric handkerchief that Graham only used when he wore his best, or Sunday suit, which he had on all that day, and this handkerchief was stained with blood.

Nellie Morrow was so fearfully agitated by the tragedy that her own evidence was only drawn from her bit by bit. She confirmed the statement of Dick's pallor and his silence all that evening, and then with hysterical sobbing told of their quarrel after church and his leaving her, as he said, never to return; but she protested that he had "never a thing against father," and that he never, never could have harmed him. All other obtainable evidence had the same general tendency, and despite his years of sturdy probity and the excellence of his character, Dick Graham had to bear the burden of the accumulation of evidence against him. The absent always have the worst of it, and his flight had confirmed the theories of many an unwilling mind. He was the murderer of his former friend and benefactor.

CHAPTER IV.

A week passed, and with no tidings of him. Detectives had been scouring the country in every direction. A man answering his description was arrested in Chicago, and turned out to be somebody else. A dozen times it was reported that now the sleuth-hounds of the law had run down their victim, but the entire month of July passed away, and the community had gradually settled down to the belief that Graham had made good his escape and taken with him some five hundred dollars of his murdered master's money.

Old Morrow had been duly and reverently buried. A younger brother from a distant state came to the scene as executor of the will, in conjunction with Mr. Lowrie, and under his management the mill resumed its functions for the benefit of the estate. Except some legacies to this brother and to the sister who had taken charge of Nellie and his household, old Morrow had left his property, valued at over forty thousand dollars, to be divided equally between his two children should Sam reappear; but if proof of his death were obtained, his share was to go to Nellie.

A week after the funeral, acting on the advice of the minister and the village doctor, Nellie's relatives sent her to Chicago. She had suffered greatly in health, and was in a condition of nervous depression. Whenever Dick's crime was mentioned in her presence, she would vehemently assert her belief in his innocence, and then shudderingly accuse herself, with piteous crying, of being the cause of all his trouble, and perhaps of her father's death. Another thing. She who had plainly shown herself fascinated by Mr. Frost's many graces and attractions during the preceding winter, now refused to see him. He hung around the house, full of respectful sympathy and lover-like interest, but was visibly chagrined at her persistent avoidance. To the minister she confessed that she had been greatly interested in Frost—perhaps a little in love with him; he flattered and delighted her, and it made Dick jealous. She didn't know how or why she so encouraged him, but she had, and now she shrank from seeing him at all. Her deep affliction would excuse it.

A week after she left for Chicago Mr. Frost concluded that he would go thither himself. The new master needed no bookkeeper, he said, and Frost was too fine a gentleman to do Dick's work around the mill. He was neither invited to go nor to stay. He was allowed to go and come without apparent let or hindrance, yet, before the train which bore him away was well out of sight, a new farm-hand, who worked at odd jobs around a neighboring place on the lake, suddenly entered the railway station, wrote ten hurried words on a telegraph-blank, and handed it to the operator, whereupon the operator gazed at him in quick surprise, then whistled softly to himself, nodded appreciatively, and clicked away the message, with the addition of a cabalistic "Rush," and Mr. Frost's train was boarded at Milwaukee by a number of people who took no special note of him, and by one man who never lost sight of him from that moment until he locked his bedroom door behind him at night.

Then the minister received a call from the new farm-hand, who brought with him a young man who worked on a place over near Eagle Prairie, a railway station some distance off to the southwest. This young man had spent Sunday calling on a sweetheart in 'Mahbin, and had started about 7.30 p.m. to walk to the large town seven miles away, where he would take the cars homeward. He saw Nellie, her aunt, and a young man driving into town, and by eight o'clock he himself was passing the mill. It was just growing dark, so that he could not distinguish faces, but he saw two men standing by the office—one short, stout, and elderly, the other tall and slender and straight. The older man was talking furiously and angrily; heard him say, "I told you an hour ago to keep away from me. You have lied to me right along. You are a thief and a scoundrel, I believe, and you are a damned coward and deserter—a deserter, by God! and I've got the papers to prove it!"

What the tall man said he could not hear. He spoke low—seemed to be arguing with the old man, begging him to be quiet, and they went into the office. Then the young man walked on a few hundred yards, when it came on to rain very hard, and he stopped and took shelter under a little fishing-shed there was right at the edge of the lake. The rain held up in fifteen minutes, and he started on again over the causeway, "and hadn't more'n got a rod" when he heard what sounded like a pistol-shot back at the mill. He stopped short and listened two minutes, but heard nothing more, so went on and thought no more of it until he heard of the murder—but that was not until a week after it happened, when he came up from the farm to Eagle village and heard people talking about it.

But with the first week in August came exciting news. Far to the northwest across the Missouri, Dick Graham had been traced and followed by a Wisconsin detective, who found him in the uniform of the regular army, just marching off with his comrades to join General Terry's forces, then in the field up the Yellowstone. In his possession was the Avenger revolver and over one hundred dollars in greenbacks. On two five-dollar bills there was a broad and ugly stain, which microscopic examination proved to be blood. Graham appeared utterly stunned at the arrest; expressed the greatest grief and horror at hearing of the murder of Mr. Morrow, and professed his entire willingness to go back and stand trial. The story of his "escape" to that distance was now easily told. The detectives had speedily satisfied themselves he had got away on none of the regular trains that week, but one bright fellow had learned that four cars full of troops had passed west late that Sunday night, and followed the clue. They had gone through to Bismarck—a tedious journey in '76—and thither he followed. Thence the troops had gone by boat up the Missouri, and he took the first opportunity that came—and the next boat going up. At Fort Buford he "sighted" his man, told his story to the commanding officer of the post, who sent for the officers of the troops with whom poor Dick was serving. They promptly asserted that their first knowledge of him was on the Monday they reached St. Paul, when a sergeant brought him to them, saying he begged to be allowed to enlist and go with them. He told a perfectly straight story; said he was an orphan, unmarried, had been a miller, but was tired of small wages, hard work, and no hopes of getting ahead, and had made up his mind to get into the regulars. Was at the railway station at midnight when the train was side-tracked to allow another to pass, and appealed to the sergeant of the guard to take him along; said he would pay his way until they could enlist him, and as he was a likely fellow they were glad to have him. He had won everybody's respect in the short time he was with them, and the whole command seemed thunderstruck to hear of the allegations against him.

The detective and his prisoner were put on a boat going back to Bismarck, and on that same boat, returning, wounded and furloughed, was a sergeant of the Seventh Cavalry—a gallant fellow who had fought under Benteen and McDougall on the bluffs of the Little Horn, after Custer's command had been surrounded and slaughtered four miles farther down stream. The sergeant kept to his room and bunk until they got to Bismarck, but the detectives had a chance to see and talk with him—and so had Graham.

It was an eventful day when the detective and his prisoner reached Nemahbin. The minister was there to meet him, as was Mr. Lowrie, and the entire male population of the neighborhood. There was no disorder or turbulence. Dick was quietly escorted to a room in the constable's house—they had no jail—and there that night he had a long conference with the minister and other prominent citizens. The minister drove home quite late—but very much later, along towards two in the morning, in fact, he was at the railway station and received in his buggy the single passenger who alighted from the night express.

Next day there was a gathering at the mayor's office—an apartment in the municipal residence devoted to dining-room duty three times a day, and opening into the kitchen on the one hand, into the hallway on another, and into the village post-office on the third. Here sat Mr. Lowrie, the doctor, the constable, other local celebrities, and one or two distinguished importations from Milwaukee. Here was the minister, looking singularly wide-awake, lively, and brisk for a man who had been up all night; here, too, sat the farm-hand who sent the cabalistic despatch when Frost went to Chicago, and the young man who heard the conversation down at the mill that Sunday night; here, too, sat Dick, looking pale but tranquil, and hither, too, presently came Mr. Frost, looking ghastly pale and very far from tranquil. Dick looked squarely at him as he entered, but Frost glanced rapidly about the room, eagerly nodding to one man after another, but avoiding Dick entirely. Then followed an impressive silence.

Outside, the August sun was streaming hotly down upon the heads of an intensely curious and interested throng; inside there was for the moment no sound but the humming of a thousand flies, or the nervous scraping of a boot over the uncarpeted floor. Then the mayor whispered a few words to the minister, who nodded to Mr. Morrow, the surviving brother, and then Mr. Morrow stepped into the hallway leading to the mayor's parlor, and presently reappeared at the doorway, and quietly said, "All right."

All eyes turned to glance at him at this moment, but, beyond his square, squat figure, nothing in the darkened hallway was visible. Then the mayor cleared his throat and began:

"By the consent of the proper authorities the prisoner, accused of the murder of the late Samuel Morrow, has been brought here instead of to the county town, for reasons that will appear hereafter. Graham, you have desired to hear the evidence of Mr. Frost, one of the principal witnesses against you at the time of the discovery of the murder. The clerk will now read it."

And read it the clerk did, in monotonous singsong. Graham sat clinching his fists and his teeth, and looking straight at Frost as the reading was finished. The latter, uneasily shifting in his chair, still looked anywhere else around the room.

"Do you wish to say anything, Graham?" asked the mayor, in answer to the appeal in Dick's eyes.

"I do, sir. That statement is a lie almost from beginning to end. I had no quarrel, no words with Mr. Morrow that Sunday evening—never spoke to him at all. It was Frost himself who was with him at the mill before supper. As to the rest of the evening I know nothing of what happened. When I got home, and put up the horse and buggy, it must have been long after ten. Then I found the east door of the mill was open, and went in and found everything dark and quiet; came out and locked the door (but never went into the office), and took the key up to the mill-house, and hung it up on the hook in the hall. I supposed Mr. Morrow was asleep in bed. Then I went home and burned some old letters and papers and packed some things in my bag. I was going away for good—I've told the doctor and the minister why—they know well enough—and I called Frost; he owed me twenty dollars, and I needed it, and woke him up, if he was asleep, and asked him for it, and the very money he gave me was in those five-dollar bills. I never burned my overalls. I did lose my handkerchief somewhere about the house that night, and never missed it until I was gone; and I never had my revolver until just before I took my bag and started, and never knew until days afterwards—way up the Northern Pacific—that one of the chambers was emptied. As for the murder, I never heard of it until I was arrested."

"Mr. Frost," said the mayor, "you made no mention in your evidence of paying money to the prisoner."

"Certainly not," said Frost, promptly, but his eyes glittered, and his face was white as a sheet. "Nothing of the kind happened. That money came direct from the mill safe."

"How do you know?"

"Well—of course—I don't know that; but it is my belief."

"Mr. Frost, there was no mention in your testimony of a violent altercation between yourself and the late Mr. Morrow at the mill that evening after Graham came in town with the ladies. Why did you omit that?"

He was livid now, and the strong, white hands were twitching nervously. All eyes were fastened upon him as he stood confronting the mayor, his back towards the hallway, where, in grim silence, stood Mr. Morrow.

"I know of no such altercation," he stammered.

"Were you ever accused of being a deserter from the army?"

Every one saw the nervous start he gave, but, though haggard and wild, he stuck to his false colors.

"Never, sir."

"That's a lie," said a deep voice out in the hall, and at the unconventional interruption there was a general stir. Men leaned forward and craned their necks to peer behind Mr. Morrow, who stood there immovable.

"Order, gentlemen, if you please," said Mr. Lowrie.

"Then how and where did you know Sam Morrow, as you convinced his father you did?"

"I?—out in Arizona, where I was mining."

"Why did you not fulfil your promise, as you said you could and would?"

"I couldn't. That was what made the old man down on me. I did believe last winter I could find Sam and get him home, but I could not bear to tell the old man he was killed with General Custer."

"That's another lie!" came from the hallway, and, brushing past Mr. Morrow's squat figure, there strode into the room a tall, bronzed-faced, soldierly fellow in the undress uniform of a sergeant of cavalry.

Men sprang to their feet and fairly shouted. Old Doctor Green threw his arms about the soldier's neck in the excess of his joy. There was a rush forward from the post-office doorway to greet him, a cry of "Sam Morrow!" and then another cry—a yell—a scurry and crash at the kitchen entrance. "Quick! Head him off! Catch him!" were the cries, and then came a dash into the open air.

With a spring like that of a panther Frost had leaped into the unguarded kitchen, thence to the fence beyond, and now was running like a deer through the quiet village street towards the railway. A hundred men were in pursuit in a moment, and in that open country there was no shelter for skulking criminal, no lair in which he could hide till night. In half an hour, exhausted, half dead with terror and despair, the wretched man was dragged back, and now, limp and dejected, cowered in the presence of his accusers.