raned his neck
slightly)--"and you, Newton Spratt, out there on the edge of the crowd,
to act as guards durin' the night, until relieved by Deputy Reesling at
seven A. M. tomorrow mornin'. You will permit no one to approach or
remove the body of Moses Briscoe from its present place of confinement
until further orders. And now, feller citizens, I must request you one
and all to disperse and not to congregate again in this locality, under
penalty of the law. Disperse at once, move on, everybody."

The crowd didn't move an inch.

"He's gone plumb crazy," said Rush Applegate to Uncle Dad Simms, and he
made such a special effort that Uncle Dad heard him quite distinctly.

"He always _wuz_," agreed Uncle Dad. "What's he crazy about this time?"

"Come on home, Anderson," said Alf Reesling, gently. "Maybe if you took
a dose of--"

"Lemme talk to him," interrupted Elmer K. Pratt, the photographer. "I
had an uncle once that _died_ in an asylum, and I used to keep him quiet
before he got hopeless by lettin' on that he really _was_ George
Washington. Now, look here, Anderson,--"

Marshal Crow held up his hand. There was no sign of resentment in his
voice or manner as he addressed the grinning crowd.

"I don't blame you for thinkin' that man in there is Jake Miller. I
thought so myself until a couple o' days ago. That's when I first begin
to suspect that he was the very man he now turns out to be. Gentlemen,
if the individual that you knew as Jake Miller hadn't took his own life
last night, I would have had him behind the bars today, sure as all get
out. He wasn't no more Jake Miller than I am. Jake Miller was one of his
alibis. He had--"

"You mean aliases," interrupted Professor Rank, of the high school.

"Or nom de plumes," added Willie Spence, the chief clerk at the Grand
View Hotel, one of the most inveterate readers in town. To Willie the
name of any author was a nom de plume; it didn't make any difference
whether it was his real name or not.

"He had a lot of names besides Jake Miller," explained Anderson loftily.
"And he didn't have to go to high school to get 'em," he added as an
afterthought, favouring Professor Rank with a withering look. "Now,
disperse,--all of you. Go on now, Willie,--disperse. Everybody disperse
except Alf Reesling. You stay here an' keep watch till I come back."

With that, he took the easiest and most expeditious way of dispersing
the crowd by walking briskly off in the direction of Main