CHAPTER IV.
_The Excitement in the Village._--_The Coroner's Investigation._--_The Secret Ambuscade._ Samuel Waring knelt down beside the form of the old man, and laid his trembling hand upon the heart that had ceased to throb forever.
"He is dead!" he uttered, in a low, subdued voice, as though he too was impressed with the solemnity of the scene.
Bucholz uttered a half articulate moan, and grasped more firmly in his nerveless hand the pistol which he carried.
One of the neighbors who had accompanied the party was about to search the pockets of the murdered man, when Farmer Allen, raising his hand, cried: "Stop! This is work for the law.

A man has been murdered, and the officers of the law must be informed of it.

Who will go ?" Samuel Waring and Bucholz at once volunteered their services and started towards the village to notify the coroner, and those whose duty it was to take charge of such cases.
Farmer Allen gazed at the rigid form of the old man lying there before him, whose life had been such an enigma to his neighbors, then at the retreating forms of the two men who were slowly wending their way to the village, and a strange, uncertain light came into his eyes as he thus looked.

He said nothing, however, of the thoughts that occupied his mind, and after bidding the others watch beside the body, he returned to his own home and informed the frightened females of what had been discovered.
The news spread with wonderful rapidity, and soon the dreadful tidings were the theme of universal conversation.

A man rushed into the saloon in which the old man and Bucholz had drank their beer, and cried out: "The old man that was in here to-night has been murdered!" Instantly everybody were upon their feet.