Everybody examined the bone, and finally the witch doctor said, “It is my opinion that Widow — is bewitching you.”
“Why, she calls here every day to see how he is,” said the woman of the house.
The witch doctor told her to watch for the witch and notice what she did when she came next time. The sick man did not sleep that night but covered his face and began to talk to himself. He was now becoming a “witch” himself. In his hand he held the witch bone with the hair around it.
The next morning an old woman left her cabin on a hill and started down into the valley and up another hill to visit the sick man. Suddenly he began to talk. “Here she comes,” he said. “She is now leaving her house. Now she is down by the well. Now she is on the road. Now she is crossing the bridge. Now she is at the gate. Now she is walking up the path. Now she is by the apple tree. Now she is at the door.” As he said this there was a rap-rap-rap outside and the housewife opened the door, and there stood the old woman.
The old woman looked worried. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said. “I worried too much about Bill, besides I think I have lost something.” Then she went in to see the sick man. He had his head covered but yelled out, “You’re the one; you leave me alone after this or I will kill you.”
The old woman pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about and soon went out.
That night the sick man talked to the bone. He wound one of his own hairs about it and then threw it at the wall, saying, “You go back to her and stick in her heart.”
Everybody in the house heard the bone fly through the wall, for it went “ping!” Then the sick man went to sleep.
The next morning the old witch didn’t come so the people went to her house and it was locked. Someone climbed in a window and found her dead in bed. They turned back the quilts and found the sharp bone driven into her heart. Nobody felt sorry but said, “It served her right; she had no business witching people.”