He had heard the many legends of “lightning balls” that are represented as ploughing the ground on Piomingo, and he spoke his fears with the frankness of one possessed of unimpeachable courage.
“That’s what makes me despise this hyar spot,” he said, irritably. “Things ’pear so cur’ous. I feel like I hev accidentally stepped off’n the face o’ the yearth. An’ I hev ter go mighty nigh spang down ter the foot o’ the mounting ’fore I feel like folks agin.”
He glanced downward toward the nearest trees that asserted the right of growth about this strange and barren place. “Ye can’t git used ter nothin’, nuther. Them cur’ous leetle woods air enough ter make a man ’low he hev got the jim-jams ez a constancy. I dunno what’s in ’em! My flesh creeps whenever I go through ’em. I always feel like ef I look right quick I’ll see suthin’ awful,—witches, or harnts, or—I dunno!”
He looked down at them again, quickly; but he was sure not quickly enough.
And the woods were of a strange aspect, chiefly of oaks with gnarled limbs, full-leaved, bulky of bole, but all uniformly stunted, not one reaching a height greater than fifteen feet. This characteristic gave a weird, unnatural effect to the long avenues beneath their low-spreading boughs. The dwarfed forest encircled Piomingo Bald, and stretched along the summit of the range, unbroken save where other domes—Silar’s Bald, Gregory’s Bald, and Parsons’ Bald—rose bare and gaunt against the sky.
“Ez ter witches an’ harnts an’ them, I ain’t never seen none hyar on Piomingo Bald,” said Doaks. “It ain’t never hed the name o’ sech, like Thunderhead.”
Mink placed his elbows on his knees, and held his chin in his hand. His roving dark eyes were meditative now; some spell of imagination lay bright in their depths.
“Hev he been viewed lately?” he asked.
“Who?” demanded Doaks, rousing himself.