As a matter of course, the first witness sworn was a doctor. Coroners begin at the beginning by first proving that the deceased is duly dead, and so within their jurisdiction; and by finding out by just what means the knife, rope, poison, or pistol ball severed the thread of existence. The human passion for completeness is as much prone to show itself in law proceedings as in art performances; coroners' inquests like to go down to the physiological principles that underlie the great fact of practical importance, and to inquire what was the name and function of the particular artery the severance of which put an end to consciousness in a set of ganglia which, with their complicated adjuncts, constitute what we call a man. It was in this case settled very promptly that the unfortunate deceased came to his death by a charge of buckshot. I shall not entertain the reader with the anatomical particulars, although these proved to be of the most pungent interest to the auditory at the inquest, and were scientifically expounded in every cross-roads grocery in the county for months afterward. There are old men in Illinois who haven't got done explaining the manner of it yet. But the important thing was accomplished when the coroner and his jury were convinced that the man was not only apparently, but scientifically, and therefore legally, dead; thus a basis was laid for the subsequent proceedings. It is one of the strong points of a coroner that he knows nothing about what is held to be competent testimony,--nothing of the strict laws of relevancy and irrelevancy. He therefore goes to work to find out the truth in any way that seems good to him, without being balked by that vast network of regulations which are sure to embarrass the best endeavors of a more learned court. Markham was sworn immediately after the doctor had finished. It was his business to identify Tom's pistol. I fancy a lawyer might have insisted that no foundation had been laid for this testimony; but to the coroner it seemed the most orderly way, immediately after proving that Lockwood had been killed, to show the weapon with which he might have been killed. Markham swore to finding this pistol in Tom's room; and the ocular proof of the existence of such a weapon, in juxtaposition with the ghastly evidence before them of Lockwood's violent death, went far to establish Tom's guilt in the minds of the people. Then other witnesses swore to Tom's presence on the camp-ground; and two young men from Moscow had heard him threaten, some weeks before, that he would shoot George Lockwood. It was just when the evidence of these two was finished that the people on the threshold of the south door of the barn began to sway to and fro in a sort of premonitory wave-motion, for outside of the door Sheriff Plunkett, having just arrived from Moscow with Tom Grayson, was battling with the condensed crowd in an endeavor to reach the presence of the coroner.