Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/262

 was a butcher-knife, all covered with blood, too!

"'There has been some foul deed done here!' I says to the woman. And she nodded her head three times. Then she told me to folly her again, and led me all the way down through the big dark house to the cellar, and it was jam-crack full o' queer noinse in every room! And she pointed at some bricks in the floor there, and made a sign for me to take 'em up. And when I 'd dug down for about a foot, I come across a long, black coffin. Gee, I felt queer. But I was n't goin' to quit when I 'd gone that far. So I unscrewed the top of the coffin, and—and—"

"Oh, you 're just trying to scare us!" cried the elder Bird girl, cynically skeptical.

Lonely's half-closed eyes suddenly opened to their full width; the dreamer had been shocked into reality; this unexpected note of unbelief had broken the bubble of his ecstasy.

"You shut up, Em'ly Bird!" And Lonely was begged not to leave his tale standing at such an unsatisfying crisis.

"Who said I was tryin' to scare you?"