I tell my wife nature's like the railroad. It quit before it got
this far."

Bassett's last scruple had fled. The story was there, ready for
the gathering. So ready, indeed, that he was almost suspicious of
his luck.

And that conviction, that things were coming too easy, persisted
through his interview with the storekeeper's wife, in the small
house behind the store. She was a talkative woman, eager to
discuss the one drama in a drab life, and she showed no curiosity
as to the reason for his question.

"Henry Livingstone!" she said. "Well, I should say so. I went
out right away when we got the word he was dead, and there I stayed
until it was all over. I guess I know as much about him as any one
around here does, for I had to go over his papers to find out who
his people were."

The papers, it seemed, had not been very interesting; canceled
checks and receipted bills, and a large bundle of letters, all of
them from a brother named David and a sister who signed herself Lucy.
There had been a sealed one, too, addressed to David Livingstone,
and to be opened after his death. She had had her husband wire
to "David" and he had come out, too late for the funeral.

"Do you remember when that was?"

"Let me see. Henry Livingstone died about a month before the murder
at the Clark ranch. We date most things around here from that time."