“But shucks!” said M’Graw, suddenly grinning. “Them two little shavers will turn up all right. Ralph and Roweny are right smart kids.”
“That may be. But we don’t know where they have gone to. Of course, Ike, they couldn’t have got up here to Red Deer Lodge, could they?”
“I don’t know ’bout that,” said the old man. “I reckon they could have got here if they’d wanted to. But I know well ’nough they didn’t—not before I went away to Ebettsville a week ago.”
“Of course not! Somebody would have seen them at Coxford. And then, if they had come here, where are they now?”
“That’s right, Mister,” agreed Ike M’Graw. “But—but who started that fire in the grate?”
“If it had been the children wouldn’t they have been found here?”
“Mebbe. Tell you the truth”—and the old man’s weather-beaten face reddened a little. “Well, to tell you the truth, when you spoke of the fire in the grate, I was some took aback. Miz’ Birdsall bein’ killed here. And she likin’ that room so. And she finally dyin’ in it—well, I don’t know—”
“Ike! you are superstitious, I do believe,” said the lawyer.
“Mebbe. But that never killed nobody,” said the man. “And funny things do happen. Howsomever—Say!” he exclaimed suddenly, “how’d these folks that made the fire get into the house and out again?”
“Hedden, my man, says he found nothing broken or burst open. It must have been by the use of a key. And the only key I knew of up here was yours, Ike.”