they had found a crushed and lifeless mass which represented him.
Fetlock Jones hurried thither with the others and looked.

The inquest was a fifteen-minute affair. Ham Sandwich, foreman of the
jury, handed up the verdict, which was phrased with a certain unstudied
literary grace, and closed with this finding, to wit: that "deceased came
to his death by his own act or some other person or persons unknown to
this jury not leaving any family or similar effects behind but his cabin
which was blown away and God have mercy on his soul amen."

Then the impatient jury rejoined the main crowd, for the storm-center of
interest was there--Sherlock Holmes. The miners stood silent and
reverent in a half-circle, inclosing a large vacant space which included
the front exposure of the site of the late premises. In this
considerable space the Extraordinary Man was moving about, attended by
his nephew with a lantern. With a tape he took measurements of the cabin
site; of the distance from the wall of chaparral to the road; of the
height of the chaparral bushes; also various other measurements. He
gathered a rag here, a splinter there, and a pinch of earth yonder,
inspected them profoundly, and preserved them. He took the "lay" of the
place with a pocket-compass, allowing two seconds for magnetic variation.
He took the time (Pacific) by his watch, correcting it for local time.
He paced off the distance from the cabin site to the corpse, and
corrected that for tidal differentiation. He took the altitude with a
pocket-aneroid, and the temperature with a pocket-thermometer. Finally
he said, with a stately bow:

"It is finished. Shall we return, gentlemen?"

He took up the line of march for the tavern, and the crowd fell into his