tom of burying the head of a dog with the malefactor in some instances of capital punishment? It is too early to indulge even in hypotheses, but the possibilities are fraught with interest.
"Maybe we've dug up Shela Tague's werewolf," Frank suggested as he and I packed the skeleton down the trail to our cottage.
"Maybe you're a fool!" I told him.
Oct. 20, 19—
SOMEONE is interfering with our work. When we arrived at the quarry this morning, we found sand scratched into our trench, stakes pulled up and several of our tools missing. Prints of large, naked feet in the earth showed that the miscreant had removed his boots in an effort to hide his identity, though why he should have done this is more than I can understand. One pair of village boots is exactly like another to me.
Toward evening it blew up a rain. Carew and I smoked endless pipes and played endless games of cribbage. Frank went to the Jones cottage. It was nearly midnight when he burst in, drenched and excited.
"I saw him!" he exclaimed, flinging his dripping waterproof over a chair. "I saw him; but he got away."
"Who?" Carew and I chorused.
"The fellow who's been jazzing up our work. When I left the Jones house, that mongrel pup of the old lady's set up an awful howling—you'd have thought his grandmother was dead from the noise he made—and I spied a suspicious-looking bird down the road. I kept my eye on him as I walked along, and when he left the trail and made for the quarry, I followed him. He went straight to our trench and got down on his all-fours, scratching sand into the hole like a dog.
"I let out a yell and rushed him; but he saw me coming and streaked it across the hill."
"What'd he look like?" asked Carew.
"Darned if I know," Frank admitted. "It was raining so hard I couldn't get a good look at him at first, and he made off so fast when I yelled that I didn't get much of a line on him then. All I can say for sure is that he's about a head taller than any of us, and thin as Job's turkey-hen. His clothes looked skintight on him, and he was wearing a cap, I think—something with a long peak that stuck out in front of his face—and man, oh, man, he surely could run."
"Which way did he go?" I asked.
"That's the funny part of it," Frank shook his head doubtfully. "I'd have sworn he ran right for our back door, but I lost sight of him by that little bunch of scrub down the path. Don't suppose either of you heard anything of him?"
We talked the mystery over for half an hour, then went to bed for want of something more exciting.
Oct. 21, 19—
CAREW is dead. Murdered.
It seems incredible that this horror should have come upon us; yet as I write, the poor fellow's body "lies by the wall"—what a beastly gruesome way of expressing themselves these Welsh have!
Last night, after supper, Frank departed for the Jones cottage as usual; and Carew and I settled ourselves for a quiet game and a smoke, The tobacco canister went empty before we'd dealt half a dozen hands, so we cut to see who should go to the village for a fresh supply. I drew an ace, Carew a ten spot.
"Be back in half an hour," he promised, pulling on his cap and jacket; "and if I catch that chap who’s been meddling with our diggings it'll go hard with one of us."
Poor Carew! It certainly went hard with him.
