“And what did she look like?” I eagerly inquired in a voice that quavered slightly with excitement. “Were you able to attain an unimpeded view of her visage?”

“Was I what?” asked the boy.

“Did you see face?” I asked.

“No sir,” said the lad. “I only saw her from the back. She was about middling height, and there didn’t appear to be much meat on her, and she was dressed all in black. Her hair was black, too. Real black. As black as”—and here, he slowly raised his right hand and, extending his stubby forefinger in my direction, said—“as yours, mister.”

At this astonishing pronouncement my heart began to beat wildly within my bosom. Here at last was persuasive testimony—if not incontestable proof—that the ominous female being I had thrice encountered was something more than a mere phantasm.

Pensively stroking his clean-shaven chin, Crockett ruminated on this intelligence for a moment before saying: “Well, young ’uns, you’ve been a power of help. Now, you’d best skedaddle on out of here, and let me and my pard get on with our business.”

“Aww,” sighed young Jesse. “Can’t we stay here and help you some more, Davy?”

“Tell you what,” Crockett said. Approaching the window, he inserted a hand into the pocket of his gray-striped trousers, extracted a coin, and proffered it to the walleyed youth. “If there’s one thing Davy Crockett holds to, it’s showing thanks to his friends. So here’s a shiny new five-cent piece—and if that ain’t enough to buy peppermint sticks for the whole lot of you, I wish I may be tromped to death by centipedes. Now you just make for the nighest candy shop—and if me and Poe need you, why, we’ll just give a hoot and a holler!”

Snatching the coin from the frontiersman’s hand, the walleyed lad emitted an exultant whoop, turned on his heels, and darted out of sight, his companions following directly behind.

“Well, Poe,” Crockett said gravely as he resumed his place at the table. “I reckon I was mistook. Looks like that mysterious she-male you seen wasn’t just a figger o’ your imagination after all.”

It is a feature of our all-too-human nature that few emotions are sweeter—more purely delicious—than a feeling of vindication. In this instance, however, my pleasure was entirely eclipsed by a sense of the deepest foreboding—by the dreadful certainty that, should the frontiersman and I fail in our present undertaking, another innocent person would soon fall victim to the sinister, raven-haired female whose existence had just been corroborated by the testimony of the corpulent youth, Tommy. I therefore replied:

“So it would appear. And unless we succeed in discovering both the motives and identity of this mysterious assassin, another tragedy—I am firmly convinced—will shortly ensue.”

“Let’s get cracking, then,” said the frontiersman.