rybody was happy; everybody was complimentary; the ice
was soon broken; songs, anecdotes, and more drinks followed, and the
pregnant minutes flew. At six minutes to one, when the jollity was at
its highest--

BOOM!

There was silence instantly. The deep sound came rolling and rumbling
from peak to peak up the gorge, then died down, and ceased. The spell
broke, then, and the men made a rush for the door, saying,

"Something's blown up!"

Outside, a voice in the darkness said, "It's away down the gorge; I saw
the flash."

The crowd poured down the canyon--Holmes, Fetlock, Archy Stillman,
everybody. They made the mile in a few minutes. By the light of a
lantern they found the smooth and solid dirt floor of Flint Buckner's
cabin; of the cabin itself not a vestige remained, not a rag nor a
splinter. Nor any sign of Flint. Search-parties sought here and there
and yonder, and presently a cry went up.

"Here he is!"

It was true. Fifty yards down the gulch they had found him--that is,
they had found a crushed and lifeless mass which represented him.
Fetlock Jones hurried thither with the others and looked.

The inquest was a fifteen-minute affair. Ham Sandwich, foreman of the
jury, handed up the verdict, which was phrased with a certain unstudied
literary grace, and closed with this finding, to wit: that "deceased
came to his death by his own act or some other person or persons unknown
to this jury not leaving any family or similar effects behind but his
cabin which was blown away and God have mercy on his soul amen."

Then the impatient jury rejoined the main crowd, for the storm-centre
of interest was there--Sherlock Holmes. The miners stood silent and
reverent in a half-circle, inclosing a large vacant space which
included the front exposure of the site of the late premises. In this
considerable space the Extraordinary Man was moving about, attended by
his nephew with a lantern. With a tape he took measurements of the cabin
site; of the distance from the wall of chaparral to the road; of the
height of the chaparral bushes; also various other measurements. He
gathered a rag here, a splinter there, and a pinch of earth yonder,
inspected them profoundly, and preserved them. He took the "lay" of
the place with a pocket-compass, allowing two seconds for magnetic
variation. He took the time (Pacific) by his watch, correcting it for
local time. He paced off the distance from the cabin site to the corpse,
and corrected t