“They’re worryin’ about themselves, and wonderin’ if anything’s goin’ to hurt ’em, and when a feller gits to fussin’ about himself he ain’t got much t-t-t-time to think about anything else.”
My, how he spluttered!
“That’s right,” I says, remembering well how I’d felt that night at the cave keeping watch all alone and wondering what had made the footprint in the sand with the toes off to one side. “Scare a man good and you got him.”
“What scares a man most—somethin’ he kin see or somethin’ he can’t?”
I saw what he was driving at right off. “Why, somethin’ he can’t see and can’t understand. The more mysterious it is the more scairt he’ll git.”
He nodded. “Then,” says he, “the thing for us to do is scare Batten and the rest of them stiff.”
I knew by the looks of him that he had a scheme; you could always tell by the winking of his eyes and the way he wiggled his left thumb sort of excited-like.
“Go ahead,” says I; “let’s have it.”
“We started it the other day with the dinner-bell. I bet old Willis is shiverin’ about that yet. We kin give ’em some more of it. Then, maybe, Sammy kin help us. Remember his showin’ us how a p-p-panther screamed?”
I should say I did remember. I never heard such a blood-curdling noise in all my life. I was sitting right by Sammy at the cave when he made it, and it was broad daylight, but the little hairs on the back of my neck rose straight up, and I was nervous all the rest of the day. I should say I did remember it.