If Anderson had let me talk this mornin' he'd 'a' knowed there wasn't no murder.

It was just a match." Hours passed before Anderson was himself again and able to comprehend the details of the story which involved the disappearance of his ward.
It slowly filtered through his mind as he sat stark-eyed and numb before the kitchen fire that this was the means her mysterious people had taken to remove her from his custody.

The twenty years had expired, and they had come to claim their own.

There was gloom in the home of Anderson Crow--gloom so dense that death would have seemed bright in comparison.
Mrs.Crow was prostrated, Anderson in a state of mental and physical collapse, the children hysterical.
All Tinkletown stood close and ministered dumbly to the misery of the bereaved ones, but made no effort to follow or frustrate the abductors.
The town seemed as helpless as the marshal, not willingly or wittingly, but because it had so long known him as leader that no one possessed the temerity to step into his place, even in an hour of emergency.
A dull state of paralysis fell upon the citizens, big and little.

It was as if universal palsy had been ordained to pinch the limbs and brains of Tinkletown until the hour came for the rehabilitation of Anderson Crow himself.