sticking from the hip pocket of his trousers; that Graham had his coat off and was washing his hands at the time. One other ugly circumstance was noted: Graham had been burning a lot of papers and things in the stove before being interrupted. When the stove was examined in the morning some buttons were found, charred and partially destroyed in the ashes, but they were clearly identified as the buttons of the canvas overalls Graham wore around the mill--which were missing--and behind the stove was found a fine cambric handkerchief that Graham only used when he wore his best, or Sunday suit, which he had on all that day, and this handkerchief was stained with blood. Nellie Morrow was so fearfully agitated by the tragedy that her own evidence was only drawn from her bit by bit. She confirmed the statement of Dick's pallor and his silence all that evening, and then with hysterical sobbing told of their quarrel after church and his leaving her, as he said, never to return; but she protested that he had "never a thing against father," and that he never, never could have harmed him. All other obtainable evidence had the same general tendency, and despite his years of sturdy probity and the excellence of his character, Dick Graham had to bear the burden of the accumulation of evidence against him. The absent always have the worst of it, and his flight had confirmed the theories of many an unwilling mind. He was the murderer of his former friend and benefactor. CHAPTER IV. A week passed, and with no tidings of him. Detectives had been scouring the country in every direction. A man answering his description was arrested in Chicago, and turned out to be somebody else. A dozen times it was reported that now the sleuth-hounds of the law had run down their victim, but the entire month of July passed away, and the community had gradually settled down to the belief that Graham had made good his escape and taken with him some five hundred dollars of his murdered master's money. Old Morrow had been duly and reverently buried. A younger brother from a distant state came to the scene as executor of the will, in conjunction with Mr. Lowrie, and under his management the mill resumed its functions for the benefit of the estate. Except some legacies to this brother and to the sister who had taken charge of Nellie and his household, old Morrow had left his property, valued at over forty thousand dollars, to be divided equally between his two children should Sam reappear; but if proof of his death were obtained, his share was to go to Nellie.