[Illustration: He did not stop to hear my answer.]

I raised my pipe above my head and hurled it against the fence, where
it crashed into a score of pieces.




V

"Who is Robert Weston?" I asked of Tim.

"If you can answer that question Theophilus Jones will give you a
cigar," replied my brother. "He has tried to find out; he has
cross-questioned every man, woman, and child that comes to his store,
and he admits that he is beaten."

"When Theop can't find out, the mystery is impenetrable." I recalled
our suave storekeeper and his gentle way of drawing from his customers
their life secrets as he leaned blandly over the counter with his sole
thought apparently to do their commands. Theophilus had known that I
was going to enlist long before I had made up my own mind. He had told
Tim that I was coming home before he had handed him the postal card on
which I had scrawled a few lines announcing my return. So when I heard
that Weston was still a puzzle to him I knew that Six Stars had a
mystery. For Six Stars to have a mystery is unusual. Occasionally we
are troubled with ghosts and such supernatural demonstrations, which
cause us to keep at home at night, but we soon forget these things if
we do not solve them. But for our village to number among its people a