It's God's mercy that he didn't go through me.
Oh, he's a good one, and I fancy the half of that reward is enough for me if you're needy.'
Holker laughed good-humouredly, and explained that his creditors were never more importunate.
'I wanted merely to show you the ground, and arrange a plan with you,' the detective explained.
'I thought it as well for us to be armed, even in daylight.'
'The man must be insane,' said the deputy sheriff.
'The reward is for his capture and conviction. If he's mad he won't be convicted.'
Mr. Holker was so profoundly affected by that possible failure of justice that he involuntarily stopped in the middle of the road, then resumed his walk with abated zeal.
'Well, he looks it,' assented Jaralson. 'I'm bound to admit that a more unshaven, unshorn, unkempt, and uneverything wretch I never saw outside the ancient and honourable order of tramps. But I've gone in for him, and can't make up my mind to let go. There's glory in it for us, anyhow. Not another soul knows that he is this side of the Mountains of the Moon.'
'All right,' Holker said; 'we will go and view the ground,' and he added, in the words of a once favourite inscription for tombstones: '"where you must shortly lie"--I mean if old Branscom ever gets tired of you and your impertinent intrusion.
By the way, I heard the other day that "Brans-com" was not his real name.'
'What is?'
'I can't recall it. I had lost all interest in the wretch. and it did not fix itself in my memory--something like Pardee. The woman whose throat he had the bad taste to cut was a widow when he met her. She had come to California to look up some relatives--there are persons who will do that some-times. But you know all that.'
'Naturally.'
'But not knowing the right name, by what happy inspiration did you find the right grave? The man who told me what the name was said it had been cut on the headboard.'
'I don't know the right grave.' Jaralson was ap-parently a trifle reluctant to admit his ignorance of so important a point of his plan. 'I have been watch-ing about the place generally. A part of our work this morning will be to identify that grave. Here is the White Church.'
For a long distance the road had been bordered by fields on both sides, but now on the left there was a forest of oaks, madronos, and gigantic spruces whose lower parts only could be seen, dim and ghostly in the fog. The undergrowth was, in places, thick, but nowhere impenetrable. For some moments Holker saw nothing of the building, but as they turned into the woods it revealed itself in faint grey outline through the fog, looking huge and far away. A few steps more, and it was within an arm's length, dis-tinct, dark with moisture, and insignificant in size.
It had the usual country-schoolhouse form--be-longed to the packing-box order of architecture;had an underpinning of stones, a moss-grown roof, and blank window spaces, whence both glass and sash had long departed. It was ruined, but not a ruin --a typical Californian substitute for what are known to guide-bookers abroad as 'monuments of the past.' With scarcely a glance at this uninterest-ing structure Jaralson moved on into the dripping undergrowth beyond.
'I will show you where he held me up,' he said.
'This is the graveyard.'
Here and there among the bushes were small en-closures containing graves, sometimes no more than one. They were recognized as graves by the dis-coloured stones or rotting boards at head and foot, leaning at all angles, some prostrate; by the ruined picket fences surrounding them; or, infrequently, by the mound itself showing its gravel through the fallen leaves. In many instances nothing marked the spot where lay the vestiges of some poor mortal --who, leaving 'a large circle of sorrowing friends,'
had been left by them in turn--except a depression in the earth, more lasting than that in the spirits of the mourners. The paths, if any paths had been, were long obliterated; trees of a considerable size had been permitted to grow up from the graves and thrust aside with root or branch the enclosing fences. Over all was that air of abandonment and decay which seems nowhere so fit and significant as in a village of the forgotten dead.
As the two men, Jaralson leading, pushed their way through the growth of young trees, that enter-prising man suddenly stopped and brought up his shotgun to the height of his breast, uttered a low note of warning, and stood motionless, his eyes fixed upon something ahead. As well as he could, obstructed by brush, his companion, though seeing nothing, imitated the posture and so stood, prepared for what might ensue. A moment later Jaralson moved cautiously forward, the other following.
Under the branches of an enormous spruce lay the dead body of a man. Standing silent above it they noted such particulars as first strike the attention--the face, the attitude, the clothing; whatever most promptly and plainly answers the unspoken ques-tion of a sympathetic curiosity.
The body lay upon its back, the legs wide apart.
