The Breaking Point - Page 114/275

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.