"Yes, 'n ain't blood a part of the body?" rasped Isaac Porter scornfully; whereupon Bud faded into the outer rim.
"First we'll look down cellar," said Mr. Crow. "Where's the cellar at?"
"There ain't none," replied Elon Jones.
"What? No cellar? Well, where in thunder did they hide the body, then?"
"There's an attic," ventured Joe Perkins.
A searching party headed by Anderson Crow shinned up the ladder to the low garret. No trace of a body was to be found, and the searchers came down rather thankfully. Then, under Mr. Crow's direction, they searched the wood piles, the woods, and the fields for many rods in all directions. At noon they congregated at the schoolhouse. Alf Reesling was there.
"Find it?" said he thickly, with a cunning leer. He had been drinking. Anderson was tempted to club him half to death, but instead he sent him home with Joe Perkins, refusing absolutely to hear what the town drunkard had to say.
"Well, you'll wish you'd listened to me," ominously hiccoughed Alf; and then, as a parting shot, "I wouldn't tell you now fer eighteen dollars cash. You c'n go to thunder!" It was lèse majesté, but the crowd did nothing worse than stare at the offender.
Before starting off on the trail of the big sleigh, Anderson sent this message by wire to the lawyers in Chicago:
"I have found the girl you want, but the body is lost. Would you just as soon have her dead as alive?