on the trail of the big sleigh, Anderson sent this
message by wire to the lawyers in Chicago:

"_I have found the girl you want, but the body is lost. Would you
just as soon have her dead as alive_?

"ANDERSON CROW."

In a big bob-sled the marshal and a picked sextette of men set off at
one o'clock on the road over which the sleigh had travelled many hours
before. Anderson had failed to report the suspected crime to the sheriff
at Boggs City and was working alone on the mystery. He said he did not
want anybody from town interfering with his affairs.

"Say, Andy--Anderson," said Harry Squires, now editor of the _Banner_,
"maybe we're hunting the wrong body and the wrong people."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, ain't 'Rast Little missing? Maybe he's been killed, eh? And say,
ain't there some chance that he did the killing? Didn't he say he was
going to murder that city chap? Well, supposing he did. We're on the
wrong track, ain't we?"

"Doggone you, Harry, that don't fit in with my deductions," wailed
Anderson. "I wish you'd let me alone. 'Rast may have done the killin',
but it's our place to find the body, ain't it? Whoever has been slew was
taken away last night in the sleigh. S'posin it was Mr. Reddon! Well,
consarn it, ain't he got a body same as anybody else? We've just got to
find somebody's body, that's all. We've got to prove the corpus
deelicti. Drive up, Bill!"

With a perseverance that spoke well for the detective's endurance, but
ill for his intelligence, the "bob" sped along aimlessly. It was
ridiculous to think of tracking a sleigh over a well-travelled road, and
it was not until they reached the cross-roads that Harry Squires
suggested that inquiries be made of the farmers in the neighbourhood.
After diligent effort, a farmer was discovered who said he had heard the
sleigh bells at midnight, and, peering from his window, had caught a
glimpse of the party turning south at the cross-roads.

"Jest as I thought!" exclaimed Anderson. "They went south so's to skip
Boggs City. Boys, they've got her body er 'Rast's body er that other
feller's body with 'em, an' they're skootin' down this pike so's to get
to the big bridge. My idee is that they allowed to drop the body in the
river, which ain't friz plum over."

"Gee! We ain't expected to search all over the bottom of the river, are
we, Anderson?" shivered Isaac Porter, the pump repairer.

"_I_ ain't," said the leader, "but I can deputise an