"There's no question about that leg and foot," said the Doctor, as he stooped and picked up the ghastly objects to examine them more closely. "They're human—no getting over that, but whether they belonged to Jemuel Knaggs, of course I can't say." Pulling them out of the soft dirt, he found clinging to the end of the femur a piece of cloth of some kind, which the instant Tom Bradford saw he took in his hands, held it up, and exclaimed:
"Well, this is the last straw that breaks the camel's back for me!" All could see that it was the fragment of a blue flannel shirt, its broad collar, with the buttonhole, torn apart.
"A piece of Jemuel Knagg's shirt, or I'm a liar," solemnly said Issachar Noe, as he gazed on the bit of telltale garment. "He always wore that kind," continued Noe. "I sent to St. Louis for them myself for him; that is a part of one of them."
The astounded party, upon this confirmation of Podgett's guilt, looked at each other in silence for a few seconds, when Bartlett, breaking the awful stillness, said:
"Gentlemen, I've seen enough here! Let's go and examine the cabin—which we've got a right to do now, as law-abiding citizens, after such damnable revelations outside of it!"
On entering the cabin, effected by the colossal Jack making a sort of a side-lurch against the door, which immediately flew off its hinges at his first essay, they discovered in the corner of the room used as a kitchen a spot where the dirt floor seemed to yield a little to the pressure of their feet as they walked over it, appearing as if it had been disturbed quite recently. Searching for some implement with which to examine the suspicious corner more closely, they at last found a spade hanging on a peg in the wall of another apartment, evidently the sleeping-room. Here and there were evidences of a woman's occupancy. Under the bed a No. 1 pair of shoes tantalizingly obtruded. On the bed itself a corset was lying, where it had apparently been hastily thrown off by its petite owner; and suspended from some hooks in the logs forming the side of the building were several skirts and other portions of female apparel. For a moment, but only for a moment, these things, so rare in the mining-camps of that period, nearly diverted from their mission the stern and honest men who had entered there, so sweetly suggestive were the articles of mother, sister, or perhaps wife, so far away, and bright visions crowded thick upon their brains. It was soon dispelled, however, as the realization of the actual present forced itself upon them; so, taking down the spade from its place, they returned to the kitchen, and Jack, who had volunteered, commenced to dig.
He had not excavated to a depth of more than two feet when he unearthed the mutilated fragments of another human body! Hereupon he rested from his labor for a moment; then stooped down and pulled something out of the hole, his hands trembling violently as he laid the object on the floor, and exclaiming as he rose up:
"This hyar gits me, by ——!"
Every one was now almost uncontrollably excited, and if Podgett had at that instant entered his own door he would have been annihilated by the infuriated men without a chance to explain, for just as Jack gave vent to his words he had lifted out of the hole a head, to which was still attached a long red beard. He recognized it at once, and that fact was the cause of his excitement.