“For the love o’ Mike!” it burst forth irritably, “why do you stand there staring; why don’t you offer to do something for a fellow who’s a ‘goner,’ eh?”
“Are you a ‘goner’?” Penelope plucked up heart to ask; the yellow-brown Mystery was presenting not a back, but a shoulder to her now, together with a short, thick neck, a double chin and the fat profile of a head, covered with clammy hair, which, inclining to one side like a bird’s, looked up at her sidelong.
That slanting gaze became an amazed one presently; the owner of the flesh-cushioned back, whether human or goblin, was evidently struck for a moment by the unique spectacle of two fringed and moccasined maidens, with their hair in long braids, head-bands on their foreheads, colored beads upon their necks, looking down at him from under the waving wing of dusk, their pedestal a white sand-hill.
But his interest in anything outside himself and his clump of basswood was evidently momentary.
“Of course I’m a goner,” he reaffirmed glumly. “Can’t you see it to look at me?” in the tone of one whose plight exempts him from the civilities of life. “I’m just making my will.”
He pointed with the dignity of a dying sage to a little grey book upon his knee and waved a stub of pencil.
“Gee! he’s crazy,” ejaculated Penelope—and Olive was deaf to her slang now.
“No, I’m not ‘crazy,’” came up from the basswood. “I’m poisoned.”
“Poisoned! With—what?” It was Olive’s startled lips which put the question.
“Arsenate of lead.”