effect he'd like to have some one telegraph his sister in
Buffalo, so's she could come on and claim his remains."

"But he wasn't a drinkin' man, Alf, and you know it."

"I know, but he always said he was lookin' forward to the day when he
could afford to get as drunk as he sometimes thought he'd like to be. He
was a droll sort of a cuss, Jake was. He claimed he'd been savin' up his
appetite and his money for nearly three years so's he could see which
would last the longest in a finish fight."

"Was you present when he was cut down?"

"I was."

"Aha! That's what I'm tryin' to get at. Who cut the rope?"

"It wasn't a rope,--it was a hitchin' strap. An' nobody cut it, come to
think of it. It was a perfectly good strap, so two or three of us held
Jake's body up so's Ed Higgins could untie it from the rafter."

"And then what?"

"Old man Hawkins and Doc Brown said he'd been dead five or six hours."

"I see. What did Doc say he died of?"

Alf stared at him in amazement. "He died of being hung to a rafter."

Marshal Crow cleared his throat, and was ominously silent for fifteen or
twenty paces. When he next spoke it was with the deepest gravity. There
was a dark significance in the look he fixed upon Alf.

"Is there any proof that Jake Miller wasn't dead long before he was
strung up to that rafter?"

"What's that?" gasped Alf, once more coming to a sudden stop.

"It's a matter I can't discuss with anybody at present," said Anderson,
curtly.

"Have--have you deduced something important, Anderson?" implored Alf,
eagerly. "Is there evidence of foul play?"

"That's my business," said Anderson. "Come on. Don't stand there with
your mouth open like that. He's still over at Hawkins's place, is he? I
been workin' on the quiet all by myself since early this morning, an' I
don't know just what's been happening around here for the last couple of
hours."

"He was there the last I heard of him," said Alf.

"Well, you've given a purty good account of yourself, Alf, an' unless
something turns up to change my present opinion, you are free to come
an' go as you please."

"See here, you blamed old hayseed, what do you mean by actin' as if I
had anything to do with Jake Mil--"

"You don't know what you're doing when you're drunk, Alf Reesling."

"But I ain't been drunk for twenty-five years, you blamed old--"

"That remains to be seen," interrupted Anderson sternly. "Now don't talk
any more. I want to think."

Having