"Joey, don't you try that," exclaimed Dan, who really seemed to be distressed on his brother's account. "You can't hurt a hant. Me and pap fired four charges of No. 8 shot into him, and we never so much as made him wink. He kept on yelling at us just the same, and now and then he would make a lunge for'ard, as if he was coming right at us."
"Go on with your story," said Joe, whose patience was all exhausted; "I am listening."
Thus adjured, Dan settled himself into a comfortable position, and began his narrative.
CHAPTER XIX. DAN TELLS HIS STORY.
Having fully determined to get rid of his tremendous secret at once and forever, Dan went deeply into all the details, and did not omit a single thing that had the least bearing upon his story.
He could not give a very connected account of the finding of the letter, for that was a matter that Silas had touched upon very lightly. The letter was found in the wood-pile, because his father said so, and that was all that Dan knew about it.
He had read the document very carefully after it came into his possession, and some portions of it were so firmly fixed in his memory that he repeated them word for word.
Then the muscles around the corners of Joe's mouth began to twitch, and when Dan told, in a frightened whisper, how the man who pushed his "partner" into the gorge had been obliged to jump into the lake in order to free himself from the presence of the "hant," which followed him day and night—when Joe heard about that, he couldn't stand it any longer. He threw himself flat upon the ground, and laughed so loudly that he awoke the echoes far and near.