“Shucks! that air nuthin’ oncommon, seein’ harnts an’ sech. Plenty o’ folks hev seen the same one. Thar’s ever so many o’ them herders on Thunderhead hev seen the harnt ez herds up thar. Rob Carrick seen him. I have hearn him tell ’bout’n it arter he got his mind back. Hain’t you, Ben?”
The moon was at the eastern windows. The white lustre poured in. The great room seemed lonely and deserted, despite the group of deliberating jurymen, and the colorless double with which each had been furnished, to ape his gesture, and caricature his size, and dog his every step. An owl was hooting in some distant tree. The voices from the street were faint.
“Ain’t that thar weasel of a constable goin’ ter hev no lamps brung hyar ter-night?” exclaimed Bylor.
But the lamps which came in almost immediately were inadequate to contend with the solemn, ethereal, white pervasion of the night that still hung in the window, and lay upon the floor, and showed the gaunt bare tree outside. They only gave a yellow cast to the circle in which the party sat, and made their faces seem less pallid and unnatural.
“Yes, I hev hearn Carrick tell it a many a time. He used ter herd with Josh Nixon in life.” Ben Doaks paused a moment. “I seen the Herder wunst myse’f, though I never felt right sure about it till ter-night. I ’lowed I mought jes’ hev fancied it.”
“What made ye sure ’bout it ter-night?” demanded Bylor, starting up from the bench.
“’Count o’ what the ’torney-gineral said ’bout hellucination. I know now ez ’twar a vision sent from hell, an’ I reckon that air one reason I hev fund it air so hard ter git religion. My mind hev got too much in league with Satan.”
“Waal, Carrick ’lowed ez Josh Nixon kem back from hell ter herd on Thunderhead ’kase all his bones warn’t buried tergether,” said the foreman.
“Law, Ben,” broke out the owner of cattle, “I wonder ef them beef bones we seen on the top o’ Piomingo Bald warn’t the bones o’ that thar leetle black heifer o’ mine ez couldn’t be fund, an’ ye ’lowed mus’ hev been eat by a wolf.”
“I knocked off the vally o’ that thar heifer in our settlin’ up, an’ I hed hoped ter hear no mo’ o’ her in this mortal life!” cried Ben Doaks, lifting his voice from the bated undertone in which he had discussed the spectral phenomena to an indignant worldly resonance. “I didn’t know ez ye branded yer beastis on her bones,” sarcastically; “the las’ time I seen her she war too fat ter show ’em. I never looked fur yer mark on them bones on the bald.”