“Mr. Pell, when there is a vacancy in the office of sheriff, how can that vacancy be filled?” “I was reading the Compiled Statutes of the state last night with that point in mind.... The Governor may appoint a successor to fill the unexpired term of office.” Carmel turned back to her work, but once more faced Evan abruptly. “Have you noticed an unusual number of men going up to Lancelot Bangs’s photograph gallery to-day?” she asked. “No. Why do you ask?” She shrugged her shoulders. “I wondered.” He eyed her a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “I shall give Mr. Bangs my attention,” he said, and arose to leave the office. Carmel arose, too, impulsively. “Please be cautious, be careful.... I could never forgive myself if anything happened to you.” For an instant his eyes glowed, color mounted to his cheeks. Then a look of astonishment, of sudden apprehension, and of confusion succeeded it. He turned and fled abruptly. For an hour Carmel continued to write. She completed a circumstantial account of the finding of the liquor _cache_, omitting only the picking up of the brass match box. It was intuition rather than judgment which caused this omission. Having completed this news story, she composed a three-quarter-column editorial upon the subject, and therein she walked a more dangerous path than in the mere recounting of the news itself. She ventured into realms of conjecture. First she touched the traffic itself, then upon the apparent magnitude of the industry locally, and then, which was an unsafe thing to do, and unwise, she pointed out with logic that such a huge business required capital, organization, and intelligence. She gave it as the opinion of the _Free Press_ that here was no affair of a few small bad men, but a real conspiracy to break the laws of the land, to the end of a huge profit. She named no names, because here conjecture was forced to pause, but she set afloat upon the current of gossip a raft of suspicion. Who in Gibeon was engaged in this conspiracy? Who was at the head of it?... At the end she asked one sentence: “Find the men who hid this store of whisky in the woods and you will have the murderers of Sheriff Churchill.” It was the first time a name had been given the disappearance of the sheriff; the first time in print that the word _murder_ had been attached to it. Carmel was well satisfied with herself. She took the story and the editorial to Tubal, with directions to set at once. Ten minutes later he appeared in the door, the manuscript in his left hand, while with his right he transferred ink from his fingers to his face. “Lady,” he said, “be you serious about printin’ this here?” “I certainly am.” “All of it?” “Every word, sentence, paragraph, and punctuation mark.”