"Rather," said Mr. Fisher. "He's the best shot I know."
Then, as if sincerely repentant of his nonchalance, he added,
with a sort of enthusiasm:
"No, but really, he's a BEAUTIFUL shot."
As if fired by his own words, he took a sort of leap at
the ledges of the rock above him, and scaled them with a sudden
agility in startling contrast to his general lassitude.
He had stood for some seconds on the headland above, with his
aquiline profile under the Panama hat relieved against the sky
and peering over the countryside before his companion had
collected himself sufficiently to scramble up after him.
The level above was a stretch of common turf on which the tracks
of the fated car were plowed plainly enough; but the brink of it
was broken as with rocky teeth; broken boulders of all shapes
and sizes lay near the edge; it was almost incredible that any
one could have deliberately driven into such a death trap,
especially in broad daylight.
"I can't make head or tail of it," said March. "Was he blind?
Or blind drunk?"
"Neither, by the look of him," replied the other.
"Then it was suicide."
"It doesn't seem a cozy way of doing it," remarked the man
called Fisher. "Besides, I don't fancy poor old Puggy would
commit suicide, somehow."
"Poor old who?" inquired the wondering journalist., "Did you know
this unfortunate man?"
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