of paper.

"Good day, sir," said I.

He answered me eagerly in native.

"Don't you speak any English?" said I.

"French," says he.

"Well," said I, "I'm sorry, but I can't do anything there."

He tried me awhile in the French, and then again in native, which
he seemed to think was the best chance. I made out he was after
more than passing the time of day with me, but had something to
communicate, and I listened the harder. I heard the names of Adams
and Case and of Randall - Randall the oftenest - and the word
"poison," or something like it, and a native word that he said very
often. I went home, repeating it to myself.

"What does fussy-ocky mean?" I asked of Uma, for that was as near
as I could come to it.

"Make dead," said she.

"The devil it does!" says I. "Did ever you hear that Case had
poisoned Johnnie Adams?"

"Every man he savvy that," says Uma, scornful-like. "Give him
white sand - bad sand. He got the bottle still. Suppose he give