But
Thomas MacGregor has never been found nor heard
of. It was learned that the couple came from Edin-
burgh, but not--my dear, do you not observe that
Mr. Elderson's bone-plate has water in it?'
I had deposited a chicken bone in my finger bowl.
'In a little cupboard I found a photograph of
MacGregor, but it did not lead to his capture.'
'Will you let me see it?' I said.
The picture showed a dark man with an evil face
made more forbidding by a long scar extending from
near the temple diagonally downward into the black
moustache.
'By the way, Mr. Elderson,' said my affable host,
'may I know why you asked about "Macarger's
Gulch"?'
'I lost a mule near there once,' I replied, 'and
the mischance has--has quite--upset me.'
'My dear,' said Mr. Morgan, with the mechanical
intonation of an interpreter translating, 'the loss of
Mr. Elderson's mule has peppered his coffee.'
ONE SUMMER NIGHT
THE fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not
seem to him to prove that he was dead: he had al-
ways been a hard man to convince. That he really
was buried, the testimony of his senses compelled
him to admit. His posture--flat upon his back, with
his hands crossed upon his stomach and tied with
something that he easily broke without profitably
altering the situation--the strict confinement of
his entire person, the black darkness and profound
silence, made a body of evidence impossible to
controvert and he accepted it without cavil.
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