We’ll spend it with the boys; it’s good for the alibi.”
He brought Sherlock Holmes to the billiard-room, which was jammed with
eager and admiring miners; the guest called the drinks, and the fun
began. Everybody was happy; everybody was complimentary; the ice was
soon broken, songs, anecdotes, and more drinks followed, and the pregnant
minutes flew. At six minutes to one, when the jollity was at its
highest–
BOOM!!
There was silence instantly. The deep sound came rolling and rumbling
frown 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-center 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
to-day.”
“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