"Oh, that was the way of it," nodded Bill. "I thought it was funny if he----" "He knowed he didn't have a ghost of a chance to git away between me and you," said Sol. Morning came, and with it rode Sol's son to fetch the coroner. Sol had established himself in the case so that he would lose very little glory in the day's revelations, and there remained one pleasant duty yet which he proposed to take upon himself. That was nothing less than carrying the news of the tragedy and Joe's arrest to Mrs. Newbolt in her lonely home at the foot of the hill. Sol's son spread the news as he rode through the thin morning to the county-seat, drawing up at barn-yard gates, hailing the neighbors on the way to their fields, pouring the amazing story into the avid ears of all who met him. Sol carried the story in the opposite direction, trotting his horse along full of leisurely importance and the enjoyment of the distinction which had fallen on him through his early connection with the strange event. When they heard it, men turned back from their fields and hastened to the Chase farm, to peer through the kitchen window and shock their toil-blunted senses in the horror of the scene. Curiosity is stronger than thrift in most men, and those of that community were no better fortified against it than others of their kind. Long before Sol Greening's great lubberly son reached the county-seat, a crowd had gathered at the farmstead of Isom Chase. Bill Frost, now bristling with the dignity of his official power, moved among them soberly, the object of great respect as the living, moving embodiment of the law. Yesterday he was only Bill Frost, a tenant of rented land, filling an office that was only a name; this morning he was Constable Bill Frost, with the power and dignity of the State of Missouri behind him, guarding a house of mystery and death. Law and authority had transformed him overnight, settling upon him as the spirit used to come upon the prophets in the good old days. Bill had only to stretch out his arm, and strong men would fall back, pale and awed, away from the wall of the house; he had but to caution them in a low word to keep hands off everything, to be instantly obeyed. They drew away into the yard and stood in low-voiced groups, the process of thought momentarily stunned by this terrible thing. "Ain't it awful?" a graybeard would whisper to a stripling youth. "Ain't it terrible?" would come the reply. "Well, well, well! Old Isom!" That was as far as any of them could go. Then they would walk softly, scarcely breathing, to the window and peep in again. Joe, unhailed and undisturbed, was spinning out his sleep. Mrs. Greening brought coffee and refreshments for the young widow from her own kitchen across the road, and the sun rose and drove the mists out of the hollows, as a shepherd drives his flocks out to graze upon the hill.