n who had killed himself could not be buried in a Catholic
graveyard. There was a burying-ground over by the Norwegian church, west
of Squaw Creek; perhaps the Norwegians would take Mr. Shimerda in.

After our visitors rode away in single file over the hill, we returned
to the kitchen. Grandmother began to make the icing for a chocolate
cake, and Otto again filled the house with the exciting, expectant song
of the plane. One pleasant thing about this time was that everybody
talked more than usual. I had never heard the postmaster say anything
but 'Only papers, to-day,' or, 'I've got a sackful of mail for ye,'
until this afternoon. Grandmother always talked, dear woman: to herself
or to the Lord, if there was no one else to listen; but grandfather was
naturally taciturn, and Jake and Otto were often so tired after supper
that I used to feel as if I were surrounded by a wall of silence. Now
everyone seemed eager to talk. That afternoon Fuchs told me story after
story: about the Black Tiger Mine, and about violent deaths and casual
buryings, and the queer fancies of dying men. You never really knew
a man, he said, until you saw him die. Most men were game, and went
without a grudge.

The postmaster, going home, stopped to say that grandfather would
bring the coroner back with him to spend the night. The officers of the
Norwegian church, he told us, had held a meeting and decided that the
Norwegian graveyard could not extend its hospitality to Mr. Shimerda.

Grandmother was indignant. 'If these foreigners are so clannish, Mr.
Bushy, we'll have to have an American graveyard that will be more
liberal-minded. I'll get right after Josiah to start one in the spring.
If anything was to happen to me, I don't want the Norwegians holding
inquisitions over me to see whether I'm good enough to be laid amongst
'em.'

Soon grandfather returned, bringing with him Anton Jelinek, and that
important person, the coroner. He was a mild, flurried old man, a Civil
War veteran, with one sleeve hanging empty. He seemed to find this case
very perplexing, and said if it had not been for grandfather he would
have sworn out a warrant against Krajiek. 'The way he acted, and the way
his axe fit the wound, was enough to convict any man.'

Although it was perfectly clear that Mr. Shimerda had killed himself,
Jake and the coroner thought something ought to be done to Krajiek
because he behaved like a guilty man. He was badly frightened,
certainly, an