"No, no; but somebody whispering?" he said. "Two or three people all huddling close somewhere and tellin' things about me. By gum! I won't have it! I dursent have it!" he said in a low scream—which is the best description of his voice then that I can give you.
I shuddered. He was a terrible companion to have here on this bleak, windy hillside, with the thin trees below us marching down in serried ranks to the thicker forest below, and the scarped peaks showing against the pale moon that hung in the sky awaiting the sun's going.
I shook my head.
"Sure?" he asked.
"Positive," said I.
He bent toward me and said in a small voice, "Keep your eye on me now. I ain't goin' to ask you another time, for I think when I speak they stop a-whispering; but I'll jest twitch up my thumb like this—see?—fer a signal to you when I hear 'em."
He sat hushed again; and then suddenly his eyes started and he raised his thumb, turning a face to me that glittered pale like lead.
"Now?" he gasped.
"Nothing," I said: "not a sound."
"Ah, but I spoke there," he said. "I ought n't to have spoken; that scared 'em; and they quit the whispering when they hear me."