ysterious
case in some respects. I rode over myself this morning to look into a
few points and I shall be glad to have some help--though I'm afraid
we'll not find anything that'll please you."

"Anything pleases me, so long as it's the truth," Terry threw off, as he
studied the sheriff, with a gleam of amusement in his eyes; he was
thinking, I knew, of Polly Mathers. "I hope," he added, assuming a
severely professional tone, "that you haven't let a lot of people crowd
into the cave and tramp up all the marks."

The landlord, who was standing in the doorway, chuckled at this.

"There ain't many people that you could drive into that there cave at
the point of the pistol," he assured us. "They think it's haunted;
leastways the niggers do."

"Have niggers been in the habit of going in much?"

"Oh, more or less," the sheriff returned, "when they want to make
themselves inconspicuous for any reason. I had a horse thief hide in
there for two weeks last year while we were scouring the country for
him. There are so many little holes; it's almost impossible to find a
man. Tramps occasionally spend the night there in cold weather."

"Do you have many tramps around here?"

"Not a great many. Once in a while a nigger comes along and asks for
something to eat."

"More often he takes it without asking," one of the men broke in. "A
week or so ago my ole woman had a cheese an' a ham an' two whole pies
that she'd got ready for a church social just disappear without a word,
out o' the pantry winder. If that ain't the mark of a nigger, I miss my
guess."

Terry laughed.

"If that happened in the North we should look around the neighborhood
for a sick small boy."

"It wasn't no boy this time--leastways not a very small one," the man
affirmed, "for that same day a pair o' my boots that I'd left in the
wood house just naturally walked off by theirselves, an' I found 'em the
next day at the bottom o' the pasture. It would take a pretty sizeable
fellow that my boots was too small for," he finished with a grin.

"They _are_ a trifle conspicuous," one of the others agreed with his
eyes on the feet in question.

I caught an interested look in Terry's glance as he mentally took their
measure, and I wondered what he was up to; but as our messenger and Pete
Moser appeared around the corner at the moment, I had no time for
speculation. Terry let his chair slip with a bang and rose to his feet.

"Ah, Mr. Moser! I'm glad to see you," he