mous "sleuth." The concluding
sentence of this bold panegyric was as follows: "Do not wait till he is
dead! Do it now!" And appended, in parentheses, the statement that the
_Banner_ would head the list of subscribers with a contribution of one
hundred dollars!

In the body of his article, Mr. Squires printed in full the contents of
the letter received by Jacob Miller on the afternoon before his
death,--the letter which had been recovered, after the most diligent and
acute search by Marshal Crow, at the bottom of an abandoned well in
Power House Gulley,--the letter which so completely vindicated the
theories and deductions of Tinkletown's most celebrated son.

Jake's letter was from his brother in Sandusky. It warned him that the
authorities had finally located him in Tinkletown and that officers were
even then on the way east to "pinch" him. They had run him down at last,
despite the various aliases under which he had sought to avoid
apprehension; brotherly love impelled him to advise Jake to "beat it" as
"quick as possible." Moreover, he went on to state that if they got him
he'd "swing" as sure as hell. Brotherly interest no doubt was also
responsible for the frank admission that the "family" had done all it
could for him, and that if he had had a grain of sense, or had listened
to his friends, he wouldn't have married her in the first place. And if
he hadn't married her, he wouldn't have been placed in a position where
he had to beat her brains out. Not that she didn't deserve to have her
brains knocked out, and all that, but "you can't go around doing that
sort of thing without getting into trouble about it."

In short, Jake--(by any other name he was just as guilty)--had slain his
wife, presumably in cold blood. At any rate, Mr. Squires, sustained by
the information received from Marshal Crow, (who had gone deeply into
the case), stated in cold type that it had been done in cold blood.

Apparently Jake had decided that he was tired of dodging the inevitable.
It was quite clear that he could not endure the thought of being "swung"
for his diabolical deed.

The account also stated that Marshal Crow had at once advised the
Western authorities by telegraph that he had their man, but regretted to
state the scoundrel had anticipated arrest in the manner now so well
known to the readers of the _Banner_, long recognized as the most
enterprising newspaper in that part of the State of New York.

A day or two later, aft