going to stay to dinner. He loafed about all that afternoon, and
stayed that day and the next, and ever since. First there came a trunk
for him, and then a dog. You see him about all the time, for when he
isn't walking, he's loafing around the tavern, or is over at the store,
arguing with Henry Holmes or Isaac Bolum. Yet all we know about him is
that he's undecided how long he'll stay and that he has lived in New
York."

"Has no one asked him point-blank what he is doing here?"

"No. Isaac Bolum declares every day that he is going to, but when the
time comes he breaks down. Every other means of finding out has been
taken."

"Josiah Nummler told me to-day he believed Weston was a detective."

"That was Elmer Spiker's theory. But, as Theop says, who is he
detecting?"

Theophilus settled that theory conclusively, in my mind, at least, for
I knew every man, woman, and child in the valley; and taking a mental
census, I could find no one who seemed to require watching by a
hawkshaw.

"Perry Thomas guessed he was an embezzler," said Tim, putting the last
dish in the cupboard and sitting down to his pipe. "Perry says Weston
is the best-learned man he ever met, and that embezzlers are naturally
educated or they would not be in places where they could embezzle."

"A truly Perryan argument," said I; "and after all, a reasonable one,
for no one would think of looking here for a fugitive."

"That's just what Perry says," rejoined Tim. "But Theop has read every
line in the papers for weeks, and he swears that no embezzlers are
missing now."

"Perhaps his crime is still concealed," I ventured.

"That was just what Isaac Bolum thought," Tim answered. "But Henry
Holmes says no missing criminal is likely to have a setter dog shipped
to him. He says such a man might send for his clothes, but he would
draw the line on dogs."

"Perhaps he has deserted his wife," I said, seeing at last a possible
solution of the mystery.

"That's what Arnold Arker suggested just a few days ago," returned Tim;
"but Tip Pulsifer allowed that no fellow would have to come so far to
desert his wife."

"Tip ought to know," said I, "for he deserts his once a year,
regularly."

"He always comes back the next day," retorted Tim stoutly.

My brother has always been Tip's champion in his matrimonial
disagreements, and whenever Pulsifer flees across the mountain,
swearing terrible oaths that he will never return, Tim goes straight to
the