There is always a plentiful supply of ready-made murderers in almost every well and long-established settlement,—men who look cross and act cross; who come home at mysterious hours and in mysterious ways, with slouched hats and shabby shirt-collars; who are not often if ever seen in church; suspicious fellows; just the sort of fellows to be talked about whenever anything bad has happened; but, perhaps, after all said and done, as good as their neighbors, indeed, sometimes better than the gossips who prate so lavishly about them. But they serve a purpose; and to that purpose some of them were put at once; and they bore it, and will have to bear it again. It is pretty much a matter of clothing. One day the whole thing was out,—the murderer was known. A neighbor’s farm-hand had fallen in with another neighbor’s farm-hand, steering his ox-cart upon some errand of slothful industry, and from the ox-driver he had learned that the said driver, on the noon of the murder-day, had met the boy and girl (boy and girl described) on the road between Mr. Motley’s house on the hill and the blood-stained rock, and soon afterward he was overtaken by, or he met, a swarthy man with a black mustache, heated and in haste, pursuing the same line of travel on which he had met the children. Yes, he could identify that man. He looked eager and fierce, with his dark skin and twisted moustache; and those were the real children, and he their murderer. He had seen the lambs, and he had looked upon the wolf. This story bore the semblance of possibility; and we were all prepared to hear of an arrest and identification. By night, however, the narrative had undergone some modification, but not losing in the vigor and picturesqueness of the original drawing,—rather otherwise. I immediately sought out the author of the bulletin, intending, if there was any substance in it after thorough investigation, to report the facts without delay to the proper authority.