They had grown tired of waiting, and after about ten minutes had gone on toward the scene of devastation.  It was all over; not another sound was to be heard in the forest; of twenty fallen trees eight were still left, the rest had been made way with.  It was incomprehensible to them how this had been accomplished, since no wagon tracks were to be found.  Moreover, the dryness of the season and the fact that the earth was strewn with pine-needles had prevented their distinguishing any footprints, although the ground in the vicinity looked as if it had been firmly stamped down.  Then, having come to the conclusion that there was no point in waiting for the head-forester, they had quickly walked to the other side of the wood in the hope of perhaps catching a glimpse of the thieves.  Here one of them had caught his bottle-string in the brambles on the way out of the wood, and when he had looked around he had seen something flash in the shrubbery; it was the belt-buckle of the head-forester whom they then found lying behind the brambles, stretched out, with his right hand clutching the barrel of his gun, the other clenched, and his forehead split with an axe.

These were the statements of the foresters.  It was then the peasants’ turn, but no evidence could be obtained from them.  Some declared they had been at home or busy somewhere else at four o’clock, and they were all decent people, not to be suspected.  The court had to content itself with their negative testimonies.

Frederick was called in.  He entered with a manner in no respect different from his usual one, neither strained nor bold.  His hearing lasted some time, and some of the questions were rather shrewdly framed; however, he answered them frankly and decisively and related the incident between himself and the forester truthfully, on the whole, except the end, which he deemed expedient to keep to himself.  His alibi at the time of the murder was easily proved.  The forester lay at the end of the Mast forest more than three-quarters of an hour’s walk from the ravine where he had spoken with Frederick at four o’clock, and whence the latter had driven his cows only ten minutes later.  Every one had seen this; all the peasants present did their utmost to confirm it; to this one he had spoken, to that one, nodded.

The court clerk sat ill-humored and embarrassed.  Suddenly he reached behind him and, presenting something gleaming to Frederick’s gaze, cried:  “To whom does this belong?” Frederick jumped back three paces, exclaiming, “Lord Jesus!  I thought you were going to brain me.”

His eyes had quickly passed across the deadly tool and seemed to fix themselves for a moment on a splinter broken out of the handle.  “I do not know,” he added firmly.  It was the axe which they had found plunged in the head-forester’s skull.