FATE ON THE TRAIL

“What in the name of God are you doing?” The words snapped like a volley through the still, cold air of the north woods.

* * * *

Kneeling on the hard trail Fordney carefully removed Fred Thompson’s hunting knife from his heart. He broke the deer rifles of the two men standing near. Both were loaded.

* * * *

The Professor put down his power glass. “Yours,” he said, “are the only fingerprints on the smooth handle of Thompson’s hunting knife.”

“But I told you, Fordney, how they got there!” exclaimed Orville Hodge. “You’ve got to believe me! I…”

“Let’s have your account again, Almy,” the Professor interrupted.

“About four o’clock I headed back toward our cabin—we were hunting separately. As I came up the trail I saw Orville bending over Fred as though he were pushing that knife into him. I hollered and he jumped to his feet!”

“I found Fred with that knife in him!” Hodge protested. “I thought perhaps he was living and that if I pulled the knife out it would help. Then I saw he was dead and just as Jim hollered I remembered that nothing should be touched.”

Fordney again interrupted. “No one but you three were in the area. You had just shot a deer, Hodge, and were returning for help to clean it—yet I found your gun fully loaded!”

“I…I…had exhausted the ammunition in the gun when I shot the deer and, not knowing whether it was dead, re-loaded before I approached it.”

“Quite. Don’t move,” the criminologist said as he covered Thompson’s murderer.

Whom did Fordney arrest for Thompson’s murder? Why? Turn page for solution.