"I have not disturbed it," pursued the other. "It is just as it was when I found it."
"Looks like a pillow," declared Mr. Byrd. "Has been used for such, I am sure; for see, the dust in this portion of the floor lies lighter than elsewhere. You can almost detect the outline of a man's recumbent form," he went on, slowly, leaning down to examine the floor more closely. "As for the boughs, they have been cut from the tree with a knife, and——" Lifting up a sprig, he looked at it, then passed it over to Hickory, with a meaning glance that directed attention to one or two short hairs of a dark brown color, that were caught in the rough bark. "He did not even throw his pocket-handkerchief over the heap before lying down," he observed.
Mr. Hickory smiled. "You're up in your business, I see." And drawing his new colleague to the table, he asked him what he saw there.
At first sight Mr. Byrd exclaimed: "Nothing," but in another moment he picked up an infinitesimal chip from between the rough logs that formed the top of this somewhat rustic piece of furniture, and turning it over in his hand, pronounced it to be a piece of wood from a lead-pencil.
"Here are several of them," remarked Mr. Hickory, "and what is more, it is easy to tell just the color of the pencil from which they were cut. It was blue."
"That is so," assented Mr. Byrd.
"Quarrymen, charcoal-burners, and the like are not much in the habit of sharpening pencils," suggested Hickory.
"Is the pencil now to be found in the pocket of Mr. Mansell a blue one?"
"It is."
"Have you any thing more to show me?" asked Mr. Byrd.