"Do you suppose I am Major Bing's wife?"

"Certainly."

"Well, she moved around into Market street last December. Maybe you'd
better hunt her up."

The general looked at Mrs. Wood solemnly for a minute, and then he
said he would. Then he bade Mrs. Wood good-morning, bowed himself out
and walked around to look for the widow. When the real widow heard the
news, she was deeply affected, and she sobbed in a most distressing
manner. Subsequently she went into mourning. The life insurance
company paid her the money due upon the major's policy. The major's
lodge passed resolutions of regret, his family divided up his
property, and the community settled down comfortably in the conviction
that the major was finally and hopelessly dead.

About a year afterward, however, Major Bing suddenly arrived in town
without announcing his coming. He had been held as a prisoner by the
Indians, and had escaped. As he stepped from the cars a policeman
looked at him a minute, then seized him by the collar and hurried
him around to the coroner's office. Before he could recover from
his amazement the coroner empaneled a jury, put the action of the
insurance company in evidence and promptly got from the jury a verdict
that "the said Bing came to his death at the hands of the Indians."

Then the major went to his house and found his widow sitting on the
front porch talking to Myers, the man to whom she was engaged to be
married. As he entered the gate his widow gave one little start of