Prison!"

There was such vengefulness and authority in the big man's visage
that the Haskell boy wilted in unconditional surrender.

"He got me into the scrape. I'll tell on him. I don't want to go to
State Prison," he wailed, and then confession flowed from him with
the steady gurgle of water from a jug. "He come to me, and he says,
says he, 'He won't ever be no kind of a boss for you. If he marries
her you'll get fed on bannock and salt pork. He's sourer'n
bonny-clabber and meaner'n pig-swill. Like enough he won't keep help,
anyway, and will let everything go to rack and ruin, the same as he
has on his own place. I'm the one to stick to,' says he. 'I've got
a way planned, and all I need is your help and we'll stand together,'
he says, 'and here's ten dollars in advance.' And I took it and done
what he planned. I needed the money, and I done it. He says to me
that we'll do things to him to make him act crazy, and we'll tell
her that he's dangerous, and then you can tell him, says he, that
she's turned witch, and is doin' them things to him; ''cause a man
that has got his first wife buried in front of his doorstep is fool
enough to believe most anything,' says he."

"Well," remarked Hiram, after a long breath, "this 'sezzer,' whoever
he may be, when he got to sezzin', seems to have made up his mind
that there was one grand, sweet song of love in this locality that
was goin' to be sung by a steam-calliope, and wind up with boiler
bustin'."

"Why in devilnation don't you ask him who 'twas that engineered it?"
demanded Cap'n Sproul, his eyes blazing with curiosity.

"An official investigation," declared Hiram, with a relish he could
not conceal, as he returned the Cap'n's earlier taunt upon that
gentleman himself, "is not an old maids' quiltin'-bee, where they
throw out the main point as soon's they get their hoods off, and then
spend the rest of the afternoon talkin' it over. Things has to take
their right and proper course in an official investigation. _I'm_
the official investigator."

He turned on Mr. Gammon.

"What do you think now, old hearse-hoss? Have you heard enough to
let you in on this? Or do you want to be proved out as the original
old Mister Easymark, in a full, illustrated edition, bound in calf?
So fur's I'm concerned, I've heard enough on that line to make me
sick."

This amazing demolishment of his superstition left Mr. Gammon
gasping. Only one pillar of that mental structure was standing. He