Doing this, Shrimplin felt the door yield, it was not locked; at the same instant he made this discovery, however, he heard a footfall in the street and so, hurried back to the gate.  The new-comer halted when he was abreast of wild Bill, and stared first at the cart and then at Shrimplin.

“Is anything the matter?” he asked.

It was Watt Harbison.

“Young Mr. Langham has fell off the high iron bridge,” said the little lamplighter, with a dignity that more than covered his lapse from grammar.

“Why—­are you badly hurt, Marsh?” cried Watt going close to the cart.

“I don’t know, I’m in most infernal pain,” said Langham slowly.

“Do you think we can lift him?” asked Shrimplin.  “The judge don’t seem to be at home.”

“Your boy would better go to my uncle’s; Judge Langham may be there,” said Watt.

And Custer promptly slid out of the cart and sped off up the street.

Langham met the delay with grim patience.  A strange indifference had taken the place of fear, nothing seemed of much moment any more.  Presently in his stupor he heard the sound of quick steps, then Colonel Harbison’s voice, and a moment later he was aware that the three men had lifted him from the cart and were carrying him along the path toward the house.  They entered the hall.

“Take me up-stairs,” he said, and without pause his bearers moved forward.

They saw now that his face was pinched and ghastly under the smear of blood that was oozing from an ugly cut on his cheek, and Watt and the colonel exchanged significant glances.  When they reached the head of the stairs Custer pushed open the first door; the room thus disclosed was in darkness, and the colonel, with a whispered caution to his companions, released his hold on Langham, and striking a match, stepped into the room where, having found the chandelier, he turned on the gas.  As the light flared up, Shrimplin and Watt advanced with their helpless burden.  It was the judge’s chamber they had entered and it was not untenanted, for there on the bed lay the judge himself.

It was Langham who first saw that recumbent figure.  A hoarse inarticulate groan escaped him.  He twisted clear of the hands that supported him and by a superhuman effort staggered to his feet, he even took an uncertain step in the direction of the bed, his starting eyes fixed on the spare figure.  Then his strength deserted him and with a cry that rose to a shriek, he pitched forward on his face.

The colonel strode past the fallen man to the bedside, where for an instant he stood looking down on a placid face and into open eyes.  As his glance wandered he saw that the judge’s nerveless fingers still grasped the butt of a revolver.

White-faced he turned away.  “Is he dead, Colonel?” asked the little lamplighter in an awe-struck voice.  “Was he murdered?” and visions of future notoriety flashed through his mind.