.

"Are you going to make this the excuse for another drunk, Price? If so,
I feel the greatest contempt for you," said Mahaffy sternly.

The judge winced at this.

"You have made a regrettable choice of words, Solomon," he urged gently.

"Where's your feeling for the boy?"

"Here!" said the judge, with an eloquent gesture, resting his hand on
his heart.

"If you let whisky alone, I'll believe you, otherwise what I have said
must stand."

The door opened, and the sheriff slouched into the room. He was chewing
a long wheat straw, and his whole appearance was one of troubled
weakness.

"Morning," he said briefly.

"Sit down, Sheriff," and the judge indicated a meek seat for the
official in a distant corner. "Have you learned anything?" he asked.

The sheriff shook his head.

"What you turning all these neighbors out of doors for?" he questioned.

"We don't want people tracking in and out the house, Sheriff. Important
evidence may be destroyed. I propose examining the slaves first--does
that meet with your approval?"

"Oh, I've talked with them, they don't know nothing," said the sheriff.
"No one don't know nothing."

"Please God, we may yet put our fingers on some villain who does," said
the judge.

Outside it was noised about that judge Price had taken matters in
hand--he was the old fellow who had been warned to keep his mouth shut,
and who had never stopped talking since. A crowd collected beyond the
library windows and feasted its eyes on the back of this hero's bald
head.

One by one the house servants were ushered into the judge's presence.
First he interrogated little Steve, who had gone to Miss Betty's door
that morning to rouse her, as was his custom. Next he examined Betty's
maid; then the cook, and various house servants, who had nothing
especial to tell, but told it at considerable length; and lastly big
Steve.

"Stop a bit," the judge suddenly interrupted the butler in the midst of
his narrative. "Does the overseer always come up to the house the first
thing in the morning?"

"Why, not exactly, Sah, but he come up this mo'ning, Sah. He was talking
to me at the back of the house, when the women run out with the word
that Missy was done gone away."

"He joined in the search?"

"Yes, Sah.''

"When was Miss Malroy seen last?" asked the judge.

"She and the young gemman you fotched heah were seen in the gyarden
along about sundown. I seen them myself."

"They had had supper?"

"Ye