take this handkerchief out of my breast-pocket, and do me the favor to tie my hands securely behind me. I might go up after the rope and make the entertainment too lengthy. It is getting late, and the audience will want to adjourn as soon as possible. Please slip the knot a little further around in front so that it will come just under my ear. All ready; now go on with the performance!" The cart started off on the instant—down went both the men, their bodies swayed convulsively in the air for a few moments, and all was over.
Who or what Kanoffsky was we never learned, the secret of his real name and history dying with him. That night all hands in camp went on a general spree, and the carousal was kept up until far towards day-break. The keeper of the other store furnished the liquor, and got blind drunk on it himself before the spree was over. Everybody admitted that he kept very mean liquor. Among the crowd were two young fellows, less intoxicated than the rest, and they finished up the performance by going out and cutting down the bodies of Kanoffsky and Pike, bringing them into the store, and setting them them up against the wall. They then took the storekeeper, propped him up between them, and left him alone with the dead. When he awoke from his stupor next morning and looked around him, the face of a ghastly corpse, with the rope still around its neck, grinned at him from either side; and on the floor at his feet were scrawled with chalk the familiar words: "When shall we three meet again!" He went out of that place on the
