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her. I decided to eavesdrop on the conversation.

"I heard that your match made in heaven was a success, Mrs. Briggle."

"Yes it was," Mrs. Briggle replied. "Miss Mariah Castle and Mr. Jonathan Herkle will be married this summer. In fact, the good man in building her a home on North Harris.

Amanda was excited. "She's talking about the three-sided house!"
"The three sided house?" I asked.

Timothy cut in. "My ancestor Mr. Herkle built it for his bride to be. The house had two front doors. One door allowed honeymooners to escape from their guests after a wedding. For funerals, mourners could go through one door, pay their respects to the person in the casket, and then leave through the other door.

"Wait a minute!" I said. Weddings and funerals were held in the home?"
"In those days, they were," he answered.
"But the ending was so sad!" Amanda piped in. "The bride died before the wedding."
"And until, now," Timothy whispered, "we didn't know the bride's namesay, isn't Castle your last name?"
"Jenny, what's wrong? You look pale!" Jenny asked.
"I spoke to my mom last night. She said I had a great aunt who died before her wedding."
Suddenly, Mrs. Gelgrib appeared. "Come along, everyone. Our next stop is the Edwin Carter Museum."

When we left Mrs. Briggle's home, Timothy tested his camera. The look on his face told me that once again, he had not recorded a thing. Mrs. Gelgrib was telling us about Edwin Carter.

"Like many men of his generation, Mr. Carter came here for the mining. Unfortunately, he discovered that some of the chemicals in the soil were causing some rather strange mutations in the local animals" She opened the door to the Carter home, and pointed to a large photograph. " Look at this goat," she said. "Can you tell me what's wrong with him?"

"Wow," Amanda exclaimed. "He has two heads!"

I looked around the house. A variety of deer, antelope and buffalo heads were hanging on the wall. In the corner, there stood a bear, which looked a bit like the one I encountered on Swan Mountain Road.

Mrs. Gelgrib continued. "Carter was concerned that these animals would be extinct, so he taught himself taxidermy to show future generations the creatures that once roamed through our county."

"They're still here, I grumbled.
"Indeed," Mrs. Gelgrib replied. Did I imagine her mysterious smile? "Most of Mr. Carter's specimens are now at the Museum of Natural History in Denver. Since he had ten thousand animals in this home, you can imagine that once they were gone, we had lots of space to fill.

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