the same old storekeepers, same old street. Take it down here, and a man ain't the same twict, even. Feller come down two years ago, name of Det Bettin; next time he was Fur Walkin, an' next I knowed he was feller name of Gost. Never twict alike! That keeps it int'restin'!"
"I should think it was. Gost, you said Gost?"
"Yeh! Rubert Gost, most impudent whelp I eveh seen in all my borned days, wearin' diamonds fit to kill! Graftin' all the way down. A mean scoundrel clear through. He's up to Hickman into a hospital now. So darn mean somebody plugged him—an' he'd ought to have been killed!"
"Shot!" Murdong exclaimed. "How did that happen?"
"No one knows; Whisky Williams found him circlin' around on the long sandbar above Slough Neck some'rs—shot through, an' out'n his head."
Murdong was surprised by the recurrence of this story at this place. He recalled, now, what Mrs. Haney and Jesse had told him about Delia, and he realized only now that he was really in the midst of the stories that were in the making down the river.
The five sat down to supper—a most excellent, smoking meal, fragrant with roasted game, a big heap of brown bread, onion-gravy dressing, and hot bread. Little was said during the meal, but after-
