There was silence instantly. The deep sound came rolling and rumbling
from peak to peak up the gorge, then died down, and ceased. The spell
broke, then, and the men made a rush for the door, saying,
“Something's blown up!”
Outside, a voice in the darkness said, “It's away down the gorge; I saw
the flash.”
The crowd poured down the canyon--Holmes, Fetlock, Archy Stillman,
everybody. They made the mile in a few minutes. By the light of a
lantern they found the smooth and solid dirt floor of Flint Buckner's
cabin; of the cabin itself not a vestige remained, not a rag nor a
splinter. Nor any sign of Flint. Search-parties sought here and there
and yonder, and presently a cry went up.
“Here he is!”
It was true. Fifty yards down the gulch they had found him--that is,
they had found a crushed and lifeless mass which represented him.
Fetlock Jones hurried thither with the others and looked.
The inquest was a fifteen-minute affair. Ham Sandwich, foreman of the
jury, handed up the verdict, which was phrased with a certain unstudied
literary grace, and closed with this finding, to wit: that “deceased
came to his death by his own act or some other person or persons unknown
to this jury not leaving any family or similar effects behind but his
cabin which was blown away and God have mercy on his soul amen.”
Then the impatient jury rejoined the main crowd, for the storm-centre
of interest was there--Sherlock Holmes. The miners stood silent and
reverent in a half-circle, inclosing a large vacant space which
included the front exposure of the site of the late premises. In this
considerable space the Extraordinary Man was moving about, attended by
his nephew with a lantern. With a tape he took measurements of the cabin
site; of the distance from the wall of chaparral to the road; of the
height of the chaparral bushes; also various other measurements. He
gathered a rag here, a splinter there, and a pinch of earth yonder,
inspected them profoundly, and preserved them. He took the “lay” of
the place with a pocket-compass, allowing two seconds for magnetic
variation. He took the time (Pacific) by his watch, correcting it for
local time. He paced off the distance from the cabin site to the corpse,
and corrected that for tidal differentiation. He took the altitude with
a pocket-aneroid, and the temperature with a pocket-thermometer. Finally
he said, with a stately bow:
“It is finished. Shall we return, gentlemen?”
He took up the line of march for the tavern, and the crowd fell into
his wake, earnestly discussing and admiring the Extraordinary Man, and
interlarding guesses as to the origin of the tragedy and who the author
of it might he.
“My, but it's grand luck having him here--hey, boys?” said Ferguson.
“It's the biggest thing of the century,” said Ham Sandwich. “It 'll go
all over the world; you mark my words.”
“You bet!” said Jake Parker, the blacksmith. “It 'll boom this camp.
Ain't it so, Wells-Fargo?”
“Well, as you want my opinion--if it's any sign of how I think about it,
I can tell you this: yesterday I was holding the Straight Flush claim at
two dollars a foot; I'd like to see the man that can get it at sixteen
today.”
“Right you are, Wells-Fargo! It's the grandest luck a new camp ever
struck. Say, did you see him collar them little rags and dirt and
things? What an eye! He just can't overlook a clue--'tain't in him.”
“That's so. And they wouldn't mean a thing to anybody else; but to him,
why, they're just a book--large print at that.”
“Sure's you're born! Them odds and ends have got their little old
secret, and they think there ain't anybody can pull it; but, land! when
he sets his grip there they've got to squeal, and don't you forget it.”
“Boys, I ain't sorry, now, that he wasn't here to roust out the child;
this is a bigger thing, by a long sight. Yes, sir, and more tangled up
and scientific and intellectual.”
“I reckon we're all of us glad it's turned out this way. Glad? 'George!
it ain't any name for it. Dontchuknow, Archy could 've learnt something
if he'd had the nous to stand by and take notice of how that man works
the system. But no; he went poking up into the chaparral and just missed
the whole thing.”
“It's true as gospel; I seen it myself. Well, Archy's young. He'll know
better one of these days.”
“Say, boys, who do you reckon done it?”
That was a difficult question, and brought out a world of unsatisfying
conjecture. Various men were mentioned as possibilities, but one by one
they were discarded as not being eligible. No one but young Hillyer had
been intimate with Flint Buckner; no one had really had a quarrel
with him; he had affronted every man who had tried to make up to him,
although not quite offensively enough to require bloodshed. There was
one name that was upon every tongue from the start, but it was the last
to get utterance--Fetlock Jones's. It was Pat Riley that mentioned it.
“Oh, well,” the boys said, “of course we've all thought of him, because
he had a million rights to kill Flint Buckner, and it was just his plain
duty to do it. But all the same there's two things we can't get around,
for one thing, he hasn't got the sand; and for another, he wasn't
anywhere near the place when it happened.”
“I know it,” said Pat. “He was there in the billiard-room with us when
it happened.”
“Yes, and was there all the time for an hour before it happened.”
“It's so. And lucky for him, too. He'd have been suspected in a minute
if it hadn't been for that.”