The detective did nothing astonishing. After collecting a portion of the
hair he deposited it carefully in his pocket-book, deposited the book
just as carefully in his breast-pocket, and then climbed out of the
quarry and marched away towards the township; and the crowd, relieved
from the restraint imposed by the law as personified in him, gathered
about the stone and examined it wisely, discovering a much longer and
more significant sermon in it than Downy had ever suspected, and finding
marrow-freezing suggestiveness in the marks of rust upon the face of the
rock, which were declared by common consent to be bloodstains. Waddy
confidently expected the gold-stealing case to culminate in the discovery
of a particularly atrocious murder, and Ephraim Shine was selected as the
probable victim. It was held by many that so good a man as the
superintendent had seemed to be could not reasonably be suspected of
consorting with a sinner like Joe Rogers with criminal intentions, and
the idea that he had been murdered by the real thieves under peculiarly
shocking circumstances was held to be more feasible, and was, in addition
to that, highly satisfactory from a dramatic point of view.

The investigations of the people stopped short at the entrance to the
shaft, where Peterson mounted guard and warned them off in the name of
the law, and meanwhile Hardy and McKnight were pegging out the land
preparatory to applying for a lease.

Downy went straight from the quarry to Shine's house, and, much to his
surprise, found the missing man's daughter there. Christina had altered
much during the last few hours: her face was now quite colourless, grief
had robbed it of its sweet simplicity, and the buoyant ingenuousness had
fled from her eyes. A new character was legible there, a strength of will
more in keeping with her fine presence. The almost childlike sympathy was