Bucholz and the Detectives | Page 9

shook their trembling branches beneath its blast.
I wonder did it penetrate into the crime-stained heart of him who had laid this harmless old man low? Was it even now ringing in his ears? Ah, strive as he may--earth and sky and air will repeat in chorus that dreadful sound, which is but the echo of his own accusing conscience, and he will never cease to hear it until, worn and weary, the plotting brain shall cease its functions, and the murderous heart shall be cold and pulseless in a dishonored grave.
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. The old gentleman was generally known, and although no one was intimately acquainted with him, all seemed to evince an interest in the cause of his death.
Many rumors were at once put in circulation, and many wild and extravagant stories were soon floating through the crowds that gathered at the corners of the streets.
Samuel Waring and Bucholz had gone directly to the office of the coroner, and informing him of the sad affair, had proceeded to the drug-store in the village, with the view of having the wounds upon his face dressed. They were found to be of a very slight character, and a few pieces of court-plaster dexterously applied were all that seemed to be required.
By this time the coroner had succeeded in impanneling a jury to accompany him to the scene of the murder, and they proceeded in a body toward the place. The lights from the lanterns, held by those who watched beside the body, directed them to the spot, and they soon arrived at the scene of the tragedy.
The coroner immediately took charge of the body, and the physician who accompanied him made an examination into the cause of his death.
Upon turning the body over, two ugly gashes were found in the back of his head, one of them cutting completely through the hat which covered it and cutting off a piece of the skull, and the other penetrating several inches into the brain, forcing the fractured bones of the skull inward.
It seemed evident that the first blow had been struck some distance from the place where the body had fallen, and that the stunned man had staggered nearly thirty feet before he fell. The second blow, which was immediately behind the left ear, had been dealt with the blunt end of an axe, and while he was prostrate upon the ground.
Death must have instantly followed this second crushing blow, and he had died without a struggle. Silently and stealthily the assassins must have come upon him, and perhaps in the midst of some pleasant dream of a boyhood home; some sweet whisper of a love of the long ago, his life had been beaten out by the murderous hand of one who had been lying in wait for his unsuspecting victim.
From the nature of the wounds the physician at once declared that they were produced by an axe. The cut in the back of the head, and from which the blood had profusely flowed, was of the exact shape of the