Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/16

 ing as he strode out of the yard. "I've got to learn him not to lie."

The street whereon his modest home was situated was within the city's limits, but unimproved and little better than a country road. The path to Kelley's being better on the other side of this road, Malachi started to cross it diagonally, picking his way over the spongy, oozy surface. As he angled thus, he became aware of a strange, mechanical rattle and an odd, persistent snorting in the darkness, but as the sounds were unaccompanied by hoof-beats, he judged them to be something far away and was busy with his thoughts till suddenly the strange noises were in his ears and he felt himself assailed from behind—violently, abruptly, undignifiedly—assailed and overturned, so that he went rolling, coasting, and skidding clear to a ditch that would some day be a gutter, while the rattle and the snort passed on, attaching itself to something totally invisible in the inky blackness.

But human voices, high-pitched and soaring distantly above the rattle and the snort, came back out of the void.

"I think we struck something!" shouted one voice.

"Only a chuck-hole. This road is rotten!" volleyed another.

"Gosh darn ye!" bellowed Malachi, furious, from his ditch, his hand closing on mud as he