(5) The Case of the Bamboo Fence - Two Minutes Mysteries

 "Now this here place," said the bandy-legged little guide, "is Dead Man's creek, being so named for tragedy in '98."

Dr. Haledjian and the other dudes on the Wild West tour gazed blankly upon a muddy stream.

"Doc Holloway's cabin stood right there," continued the guide. "I guess Doc was the most popular fellow in these parts.

"Well, one afternoon Doc is patchin' up a peddler when Jim Sterling busts in. Jim says he was in town when a lone desperado with a pair of fancy six-shooters cleaned out the bank. In all the fuss and shootin', Jim is mistaken for the gunman and has to hightail it to save his hide.

" 'The bandit done dropped one of his sixes,' says Jim. 'Iffin I ever see the mate, I'll have me the the real culprit.'

"There was no time for playin' detective just then. A posse was comin'. Doc believed Jim was innocent, and so he puts on Jim's shirt and hat. Doc figures to lead the posse off long enough for Jim to escape.

"After getting his patient, the peddler, to keep his mouth shut, Doc cuts a lenght of rail about six feet long from his bamboo fence.

"He tells Jim to sin in the creet and breathe through the hollow bamboo, which is maybe as big as a two-bit piece.

"Then Doc rices Jim's horse away, and the posse follows. Later, Jim is cleared, but ain't no good. Jim is dead - drowned in the creek.

"The peddler fished him out and hour later after the Doc decoyed the posse. Doc reckoned poor Jim panicked underwater and drowned."

"He didn't panic," correcter Haledjian. "He was murdered".

How did Haledjian know?

Breathing through a tube six feet long and as big as a two-bit piece (25cents), Jim would have passed out propntly. He would have been breathing in the same air as he had just expelled - air without oxygen - a simple medical fact oc Holloway certainly knew!