At length, as a last resort, he reluctantly shouted for May Ellen.
She came, a drab woman—thin-haired, hollow-chested with a wiry, hipless figure and protruding teeth.
"Wal, sir?"
"May Ellen, who's been explorin' this secretary of mine? Some of the things that oughter be in it, ain't," blustered he.
"What things?"
The woman's eye was faded, but it held a quality that warned the sheriff she was not, perhaps, as spiritless as she looked.
"Oh—oh, just some little things I was huntin' for," he amended, adopting a more conciliatory tone.
"If I knew what they was, I could tell you better where they might be lurkin'."
Alas, there was no help for it!