“‘Come here, for Lord’s sake,’ he called to Joel, and Joel come and seen the tracks all aimin’ for the well, and on the curb the muddy print of a hand as if some one had clung there fitin’ for life, and right under the curb what do you think was hangin’ on a nail?”
Zacheus was very dramatic and eloquent by this time, and pointed his forefinger at Craig, who was himself a good deal shaken, and answered under his breath, “Mr. Dalton’s hat!”
“Oh, my land,” Zacheus ejaculated, in some disgust. “A stovepipe hat on a broken nail! No, sir! The hat was found on the head of the vally’s brother, and on the nail was a piece of Mr. Dalton’s linen coat that everybody knew, and in the well stickin’ up out of the water and kinder lodged on the stones was one of his boots with his foot in it! Joel was that faint when he seen it that the bartender had to hold on to him to keep him from pitchin’ head fust inter the well.
“‘Here’s murder,’ says ’ee. ‘Mari, come here.’
“She come, with her knees knockin’ together and a lump in her throat as big as a goose aig.
“‘Mari,’ says ’ee, ‘where did you git water for breakfast?’
“‘From the spring, over there,’ pointin’ to the orchard. ‘Miss Dalton said she’d rather have the water from there, ’cause that in the well was low,’ says Mari, her tongue so thick she could hardly talk.
“‘Have you often got water from there,’ says Joel.
“‘No,’ says Mari, and ‘Yes, very often,’ says Miss Dalton.
“She had come out to where the tracks was in the mud, and was white now as her gown and leanin’ on to Mari.