of the inquiry
after the formal preliminary queries. The seven men, as they sat
together on a bench made by passing a plank between the logs of the
wall diagonally across the corner of the room, chewed meditatively
their quids of tobacco, and now and then spat profusely on the ground,
their faces growing more perplexed and graver as the examination
progressed.

When Hite disclosed the circumstance that on the previous day he had
encountered a "stranger man" near the "Witch-Face," there was a
palpable sensation among them. They glanced at one another meaningly,
and a sudden irritation was perceptible in the coroner's manner as he
sat in a rickety chair near the improvised bier. He was a citizen of
the valley region, a trifle more sophisticated than the jury, and
disposed to seriously deprecate the introduction of any morbid or
superstitious element into so grave a matter. He had a bald head, a
lean face, the bones very clearly defined about the temple and cheek
and jaw, a scanty grizzled beard; and he was dressed somewhat farmer
fashion, in blue jeans, with his boots drawn high over his trousers,
but with a stiffly starched white shirt,--the collar and cravat in
evidence, the cuffs, however, vanished up the big sleeves of his coat.

"The exact place of the meeting is not material," he said frowningly.

But Hite's mercurial interest in the drawing had revived anew.

"Thar she be," he exclaimed, so suddenly that the jury started with a
common impulse, "the ole witch-face,"--he pointed at the sketch in the
coroner's hand,--"a mite ter the east an' a leetle south in the
pictur', ez nat'ral ez life!"

One of the jurymen asked to see the sketch again. Evidently, in the
hasty delineation of the contours of the slope they had not noticed
the gigantic grimacing countenance which they all knew so well; the
picturesque figure of the mountaineer in the foreground had so
impressed the stranger that it was much more nearly complete than the
landscape, being definite in every detail, and fully shaded. The book
was handed along the row of men, each recognizing the semblance, once
pointed out, with a touch of dismayed surprise that alarmed the
coroner for the sanity of the verdict; his rational estimate rated
spells and bewitchments and omens as far less plausible agencies in
disaster than horse-thieves, highwaymen, and moonshiners.

"Look at the face of the deceased," he said, with a sort of spare
enunciation, coercive somehow in