"Why, to hold the inquest," explained the constable. "The coroner's sick abed, and he said you bein' the nearest jestice of the peace you should serve." "Oh," said the squire with more ease. "Well, where is it--the body?" "They taken it to Bristow's place and put it in his stable for the present. They brought it out over on that side and his place was the nearest. If you'll hop in here with me, squire, I'll ride you right over there now. There's enough men already gathered to make up a jury, I reckin." "I--I ain't well," demurred the squire. "I've been sleepin' porely these last few nights. It's the heat," he added quickly. "Well, suh, you don't look very brash, and that's a fact," said the constable; "but this here job ain't goin' to keep you long. You see it's in such shape--the body is--that there ain't no way of makin' out who the feller was nor whut killed him. There ain't nobody reported missin' in this county as we know of, either; so I jedge a verdict of a unknown person dead from unknown causes would be about the correct thing. And we kin git it all over mighty quick and put him underground right away, suh--if you'll go along now." "I'll go," agreed the squire, almost quivering in his newborn eagerness. "I'll go right now." He did not wait to get his coat or to notify his wife of the errand that was taking him. In his shirtsleeves he climbed into the buggy, and the constable turned his horse and clucked him into a trot. And now the squire asked the question that knocked at his lips demanding to be asked--the question the answer to which he yearned for and yet dreaded. "How did they come to find--it?" "Well, suh, that's a funny thing," said the constable. "Early this mornin' Bristow's oldest boy--that one they call Buddy--he heared a cowbell over in the swamp and so he went to look; Bristow's got cows, as you know, and one or two of 'em is belled. And he kept on followin' after the sound of it till he got way down into the thickest part of them cypress slashes that's near the middle there; and right there he run acrost it--this body. "But, suh, squire, it wasn't no cow at all. No, suh; it was a buzzard with a cowbell on his neck--that's whut it was. Yes, suh; that there same old Belled Buzzard he's come back agin and is hangin' round. They tell me he ain't been seen round here since the year of the yellow fever--I don't remember myself, but that's whut they tell me. The niggers over on the other side are right smartly worked up over it. They say--the niggers do--that when the Belled Buzzard comes it's a sign of bad luck for somebody, shore!"