"I know!" cried Custer. "Some one's been killed!"

"Exactly!" said Mr. Shrimplin with increasing benevolence. "Some one has
been killed!"

"You done it!" cried Custer.

"I found the party," admitted Mr. Shrimplin with calm dignity.

"Oh!" But perhaps Custer's first emotion was on the whole one of
disappointment.

"How you talk!" said Mrs. Shrimplin.

"I reckon I might say more, most any one would," retorted Mr. Shrimplin
quietly. "It was old man McBride--someone's murdered him for his money;
I never seen the town so on end over anything before, but whoever wants
to be well posted's got to come to me for the particulars. I seen the
old man before Colonel Harbison seen him, I seen him before Andy Gilmore
seen him, I seen him before the coroner seen him, or the sheriff or
_any one_ seen him! I was on the spot ahead of 'em all. If any one wants
to know how he looked just after he was killed, they got to come to me
to find out. Colonel Harbison can't tell 'em, and Andy Gilmore can't
tell 'em; it's only me knows them particulars!"

The effect of this stirring declaration was quite all he had hoped for.
Out of the tail of his eye he saw that Mrs. Shrimplin was, as she
afterward freely confessed, taken aback. As for Custer, he had forgotten
his disappointment that a death by violence had occurred for which his
father was not directly responsible.