“I makes old Gray jump the straw pile, and I comes at them just like I rose out of the ground! Yes,” acknowledged Zene forbearingly, “they run. Maybe they run toward the house, and maybe they run the other way. I got a-holt of old White's hitch-strap and my boot; then I cantered out and hitched up, and went along the road real lively. It wasn't till towards mornin' that I turned off into the woods and tied up for a nap. Yes, I slept part of the night in the wagon.”
Robert sifted all these harrowing circumstances.
“Maybe they weren't stealing the horses,” he hazarded. “Don't folks ever unhitch other folks' horses to put 'em in their stable?”
Zene drew down the corners of his mouth to express impatience.
“But I'd hated to been there,” Robert hastened to add.
“I guess you would,” Zene observed in a lofty, but mollified way, “if you'd seen the pile of bones I passed down the road a piece from that house.”
“Bones?”
“Piled all in a heap at the edge of the woods.”
“What kind of bones, Zene?”
“Well, I didn't get out to handle 'em. But I see one skull about the size of yours, with a cap on about the size of yours.”