A further examination of the accounts of the murdered man, however, disclosed the startling fact that a sum of money aggregating to over fifty thousand dollars had disappeared, and, as he was supposed to have carried this amount upon his person, it must have been taken from him on the night of the murder.
Here, then, was food for speculation.

The man had been killed, and robbery had undoubtedly been the incentive.

Who could have committed the deed and so successfully have escaped suspicion and detection?
Could it have been William Bucholz?
Of a certainty the opportunity had been afforded him, and he could have struck the old man down with no one near to tell the story.

But if, in the silence of that lonely evening, his hand had dealt the fatal blow, where was the instrument with which the deed was committed?
If he had rifled the dead man's pockets and had taken from him his greedily hoarded wealth, where was it now secured, or what disposition had he made of it?
From the time that he had fallen fainting upon the floor of the farm-house kitchen, until the present, he was not known to have been alone.
Tearful in his grief for the death of his master, his voice had been the first that suggested the necessity for going in search of him.

He was seen to go to the place where he usually kept his pistol, and prepare himself for defense in accompanying Samuel Waring.
He had stood sorrowfully beside that prostrate form as the hand of the neighbor had been laid upon the stilled and silent heart, and life had been pronounced extinct.