"Only this," responded the other, taking out of his pocket the torn-off corner of a newspaper. "I found this blowing about under the bushes out there," said he. "Look at it and tell me from what paper it was torn."
"I don't know," said Mr. Byrd; "none that I am acquainted with."
"You don't read the Buffalo Courier?"
"Oh, is this——"
"A corner from the Buffalo Courier? I don't know, but I mean to find out. If it is, and the date proves to be correct, we won't have much trouble about the little link, will we?"
Mr. Byrd shook his head and they again crouched down over the fire.
"And, now, what did you learn in Buffalo?" inquired the persistent Hickory.
"Not much," acknowledged Mr. Byrd. "The man Brown was entirely too ubiquitous to give me my full chance. Neither at the house nor at the mill was I able to glean any thing beyond an admission from the landlady that Mr. Mansell was not at home at the time of his aunt's murder. I couldn't even learn where he was on that day, or where he had ostensibly gone? If it had not been for the little girl of Mr. Goodman——"
"Ah, I had not time to go to that house," interjected the other, suggestively.
"I should have come home as wise as I went," continued Mr. Byrd. "She told me that on the day before Mr. Mansell returned, he wrote to her father from Monteith, and that settled my mind in regard to him. It was pure luck, however."