un towards the other cabins. It was, however,
easily conceivable that he should take up the pursuit of the real
murderers, and in the darkness--exhausted, breathless, and certainly
somewhat excited--run blindly down the trail.

Her summing up was a strong piece of synthesis; and when she had done,
the meeting applauded her roundly. But she was angry and hurt, for she
knew the demonstration was for her sex rather than for her cause and
the work she had done.

Bill Brown, somewhat of a shyster, and his ear ever cocked to the
crowd, was not above taking advantage when opportunity offered, and
when it did not offer, to dogmatize artfully. In this his native humor
was a strong factor, and when he had finished with the mysterious
masked men they were as exploded sun-myths,--which phrase he promptly
applied to them.

They could not have got off the island. The condition of the ice for
the three or four hours preceding the break-up would not have permitted
it. The prisoner had implicated none of the residents of the island,
while every one of them, with the exception of the prisoner, had been
accounted for elsewhere. Possibly the prisoner was excited when he ran
down the trail into the arms of La Flitche and John the Swede. One
should have thought, however, that he had grown used to such things in
Siberia. But that was immaterial; the facts were that he was
undoubtedly in an abnormal state of excitement, that he was
hysterically excited, and that a murderer under such circumstances
would take little account of where he ran. Such things had happened
before. Many a man had butted into his own retribution.

In the matter of the relations of Borg, Bella, and St. Vincent, he made
a strong appeal to the instinctive prejudices of his listeners, and for
the time being abandoned matter-of-fact reasoning for all-potent
sentimental platitudes. He granted that circumstantial evidence never
proved anything absolutely. It was not necessary it should. Beyond
the shadow of a reasonable doubt was all that was required. That this
had been done, he went on to review the testimony.

"And, finally," he said, "you can't get around Bella's last words. We
know nothing of our own direct knowledge. We've been feeling around in
the dark, clutching at little things, and trying to figure it all out.
But, gentlemen," he paused to search the faces of his listeners, "Bella
knew the truth. Hers is no circumstantial evidence. With quick,