er looked shamed and downcast and asked me did I believe
the deacon had been drinkin'. She said he told her he jest took a little
medicine when the headache fust struck him. I didn't give him away. I
looked s'prised and shook my head and told her he wasn't a drinkin' man,
so 'course there wan't no question on that p'int. But we're kinder
worried 'bout Eli. If he don't turn up before long, we're goin' to send
out searchers for him."

"You needn't bother to do that, Bill," said a mild, mournful voice, as a
dusky figure came round the corner of the house. "I'm all right. I'm
purty well straightened out now, and I guess I'll go back home and
kinder quiet mother's narves. You see she was rather excited and
disturbed over the affair, and she wouldn't let me rest arter I gut to
the house, so I sneaked off into Silus Cobb's barn, crawled into the
haymow and slept a while. It was dark when I woke up, and I didn't know
jest where I was. 'Twixt you and me, I'm going to tell Rufe Applesnack
what I think of him. That cider was the most violent stuff I ever put
down my woozle. It had an awful kick. I s'pose me and Eben and Elnathan
are disgraced in Bloomfield for the rest of our lives. I don't think
I'll show my head outside of the house for a month."

Frank slapped the downcast old man on the shoulder and tried to brace
him up, but Given was so depressed that he refused to cheer up in the
slightest.

"Think you can find your way home, Eli?" asked Hunker.

"Well, I'm over seven and I'm sober now," was the answer. "Don't you
fret 'bout me. I'll git home, all right."

Bright and early the following morning Hunker and several villagers
appeared at Merry Home and asked leave to use Frank's boats in the
search for the body of the Mexican.

After breakfast Merriwell and a number of his friends went over to the
lake and found the searchers at work.

Hunker reported that they had discovered no trace of the missing man.
Carker, Hodge, and Merriwell launched a boat from the boathouse and
joined in the work.

"It was on this cliff here that we had the encounter," explained Greg,
as they rowed back and forth beneath the bluff. "The man's body should
be here somewhere. There seems to be no particular current at this spot
to carry it away. I think we'll find Jose Murillo within thirty yards of
this locality."

There was a harsh, unpleasant laugh, and a voice cried:

"Senyor Carkaire ees right. Jose Murillo ees witheen thirtee yards of