found that the deceased, Janet MacGregor, came to her death from
blows inflicted by some person to the jury unknown; but it was added
that the evidence pointed strongly to her husband, Thomas MacGregor,
as the guilty person. But Thomas MacGregor has never been found nor
heard of. It was learned that the couple came from Edinburgh, but
not--my dear, do you not observe that Mr. Elderson's boneplate has
water in it?"

I had deposited a chicken bone in my finger bowl.

"In a little cupboard I found a photograph of MacGregor, but it did
not lead to his capture."

"Will you let me see it?" I said.

The picture showed a dark man with an evil face made more forbidding
by a long scar extending from near the temple diagonally downward
into the black mustache.

"By the way, Mr. Elderson," said my affable host, "may I know why you
asked about 'Macarger's Gulch'?"

"I lost a mule near there once," I replied, "and the mischance has--
has quite--upset me."

"My dear," said Mr. Morgan, with the mechanical intonation of an
interpreter translating, "the loss of Mr. Elderson's mule has
peppered his coffee."