clared Mr. Shrimplin.

"You seen young John North."

It was Mrs. Shrimplin who spoke.

"Well, yes, I seen young John North--I said I seen him!"

CHAPTER SIX

PUTTING ON THE SCREWS

A score of men and boys followed the undertaker's wagon to the small
frame cottage that had been Archibald McBride's home for half a century,
and a group of these assembled about the gate as the wagon drew up
before it. Along the quiet street, windows were raised and doors were
opened. It was perhaps the first time, as it was to be the last, that
Archibald McBride's neighbors took note of his home-coming.

His keys had been found and intrusted to one of the policemen who
accompanied the undertaker and his men; now, as the wagon came to a
stand, this officer sprang to the ground, and pushing open the gate went
quickly up the path to the front door. There in the shelter of the porch
he paused to light a lantern, then he tried key after key until he found
the one that fitted the lock; he opened the door and entered the house,
the undertaker following him. A second officer stationed himself at the
door and kept back the crowd. Their preparations were soon made and the
two men reappeared on the porch.

"It's all right," the undertaker said, and four men raised the stretcher
again and carried the old merchant into the house.

At this juncture Colonel Harbison, followed by his nephew and Gilmore,
made his way through the crowd before the door. Gilmore, even, gave an
involuntary shudder as they entered the small hall lighted by the single
lantern, while the colonel could have wished himself anywhere else; he
had come from a sense of duty; he had known McBride as well as any one
in Mount Hope had known him, and it had seemed a lack of respect to the
dead man to leave him to the care of the merely curious; but he was
painfully conscious of the still presence in the parlor; he felt that
they were unwelcome intruders in the home of that austere old man, who
had made no friends, who had no intimates, but had lived according to
his choice, solitary and alone. The colonel and Watt Harbison followed
the gambler into what had been the old merchant's sitting-room. There
were two lamps on the chimneypiece, both of which Gilmore lighted.

"That's a whole lot better," he said.

"Anything more we can do, gentlemen?" asked the undertaker, coming into
the room.

"Nothing, thank you," answered the colonel in a tone of abstraction, and
he felt a