"Did they git him out?"

"Oh, yes, they got him out jest in time."

"Jest in time to save his life?"

"No, jest in time to keep from sp'ilin' the water. He drownded all right."

"Ought to have drownded long ago," Jasper replied. "But I'd a leetle ruther it had tuck place befo' he got the five from me."

"But say, Jasper, come to think of it we did have some right sharp excitement over our way yistidy. 'Lowed thar war suthin' on my mind. Ricolleck the hoss the preacher swopped to Dave Somers?"

"The bay with white fetlocks?"

"Yes, thatter'n. Wall, Dave tuck him home an' put him in the stable, an' in the night he got up an' went out to rub him, havin' him on his mind, an' when he went into the stable he found the hoss dead."

"What, you don't mean it?"

"Wall, I don't deceive a man about sich a matter. Yes, found him dead; an' he roused up his neighbors an' they all come an' looked at the hoss, but he didn't kere fur, as I tell you, he war dead. An' now the talk is that the preacher known that thar war suthin' wrong with him, an' jest wanted to git rid of him. Dave, you know, went up to the mourner's bench some time ago an' got a right lively artickle of religion; but when his hoss died he 'lowed, he did, that he didn't want no sich religion that this here preacher would fetch an' he ups an' cusses, he does, an' flings his religion away."