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The stove lay in a shallow pit, filled with ancient ashes and crumbled
bits of wood from the roof. It lay on its side, its sheet-iron sides
collapsed, its long chimney disintegrated. He was in a heavy sweat
before he had uncovered it and was able to remove it from its bed of
ashes and pine needles. This done, he brought his candle-lantern and
settled himself cross-legged on the ground.
His first casual inspection of the ashes revealed nothing. He set to
work more carefully then, picking them up by handfuls, examining and
discarding. Within ten minutes he had in a pile beside him some burned
and blackened metal buttons, the eyelets and a piece of leather from a
shoe, and the almost unrecognizable nib of a fountain pen.
He sat with them in the palm of his hand. Taken alone, each one was
insignificant, proved nothing whatever. Taken all together, they assumed
vast proportions, became convincing, became evidence.
Late that night he descended stiffly at the livery stable, and turned
his weary horse over to a stableman.
"Looks dead beat," said the stableman, eyeing the animal.
"He's got nothing on me," Bassett responded cheerfully. "Better give him
a hot bath and put him to bed. That's what I'm going to do."
He walked back to the hotel, glad to stretch his aching muscles. The
lobby was empty, and behind the desk the night clerk was waiting for the
midnight train. Bassett was wide awake by that time, and he went back to
the desk and lounged against it.
"You look as though you'd struck oil," said the night clerk.
"Oil! I'll tell you what I have struck. I've struck a livery stable
saddle two million times in the last two days."
The clerk grinned, and Bassett idly pulled the register toward him.
"J. Smith, Minneapolis," he read. Then he stopped and stared. Richard
Livingstone was registered on the next line above.