“Jake was out back. He was the deadest man I ever see. He’d been thar—I dunno how long, but too long anyway. I ain’t a-goin’ to tell ye how he looked—I don’t want to remember it too plain. But we couldn’t see a mark onto him, an’ we dunno yit what kilt him. But he got kilt sometime into the night.
“We know that much, ’cause Jake was undressed—nothin’ onto him but his shirt—an’ we found the rest o’ his clo’es hangin’ on nails beside the bed, an’ his shoes layin’ onto the floor jest where he dropped ’em. He had got up an’ tore open this front door an’ run out back an’ fell down an’ died. He was dyin’ when he run out o’ here, too—he only went a little ways. But what he was runnin’ away from—what had got holt o’ him before he run—nobody knows. Nobody but Jake, an’ he can’t tell.
“That’s all there is to it, ’cept this: two-three fellers tried livin’ here an’ they couldn’t. They heard them same things that was round ye last night, an’ other things too, ’cordin’ to what I’ve heard tell; an’ they felt sumpthin’ that was worse’n what they heard. They jest couldn’t stand it. So they took everything wuth carryin’ an’ got out, an’ sence then nobody’s been here but Dalton’s Death—that’s what folks calls the thing that walks here nights: Dalton’s Death. I dunno if—— Whoa thar, Bob, whoa! Back up!”
He clattered to the door and plunged out. Douglas followed, to find him grabbing the reins and halting the white horse.
“Got to go ’long, boy,” he shouted from the edge of the road. “Bob’s a-gittin’ cranky, an’ mebbe he’s got a right to. ’Tain’t fitten weather for hoss or man. Come on up an’ visit with me any time.”
He clambered in and turned to yell an afterthought.
“Don’t leave yer gun here when ye go out. Ye might lose it. Some folks ain’t scairt o’ Dalton’s Death ’ceptin’ at night. G’by. G’yapalong!”
Blurred by the rain, he rolled away and was gone.
CHAPTER X
A SCRAP OF PAPER
Singing a sleepy little song, the waters of Coxing Kill flowed lazily down their stony channel into a deep green pool.