by, and treated me, and then asked me to do a
little business for him on the road. He didn't seem to know any more
about his own murder than I did."

"Why, then it can't be a fact!" exclaimed Dominicus Pike.

"I guess he'd have mentioned, if it was," said the old farmer; and he
removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus quite down in
the mouth.

Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedler had no
heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himself
with a glass of gin and water and went to bed, where all night long he
dreamed of hanging on the St. Michael's pear tree.

To avoid the old farmer (whom he so detested that his suspension would
have pleased him better than Mr. Higginbotham's), Dominicus rose in
the gray of the morning, put the little mare into the green cart and
trotted swiftly away toward Parker's Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy
road and the pleasant summer dawn revived his spirits, and might have
encouraged him to repeat the old story had there been anybody awake to
bear it, but he met neither ox-team, light wagon, chaise, horseman nor
foot-traveller till, just as he crossed Salmon River, a man came
trudging down to the bridge with a bundle over his shoulder, on the
end of a stick.

"Good-morning, mister," said the pedler, reining in his mare. "If you
come from Kimballton or that neighborhood, maybe you can tell me the
real fact about this affair of old Mr. Higginbotham. Was the old
fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago by an Irishman and a
nigger?"

Dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe at first that the
stranger himself had a deep tinge of negro blood. On hearing this
sudden question the Ethiopian appeared to change his skin, its yellow
hue becoming a ghastly white, while, shaking and stammering, he thus
replied:

"No, no! There was no colored man. It was an Irishman that hanged him
last night at eight o'clock; I came away at seven. His folks can't
have looked for him in the orchard yet."

Scarcely had the yellow man spoken, when he interrupted himself and,
though he seemed weary enough before, continued his journey at a pace
which would have kept the pedler's mare on a smart trot. Dominicus
stared after him in great perplexity. If the murder had not been
committed till Tuesday night, who was the prophet that had foretold it
in all its circumstances on Tuesday morning? If Mr. Higginbotham's
corpse were not yet discovere