Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/229

Rh horse, and galloped it all the way home, full-bat up to the door; then he jumped down, leaving the cart and horse standing there, and went in and lay down on the bed, and wouldn't speak to anybody for two hours."

"How long?" asked Jim, still feebly.

"Two hours," said Andy earnestly, as he went in with the firewood.

Jack Jones proposed "a bit of a stroll"; he said it would do them good. He felt an irresistible inclination to giggle, and wished to get out of the hearing of Andy, whom he respected. As they slouched along the track there was an incident which proved the state of their nerves. A big brown snake whipped across the dusty path into a heap of dead boughs. They stared at each other for a full minute, then Jack summoned courage to ask—

"Did you chaps see that snake?"

"Yes," and so it was all right. Then they put a match to the boughs, and stood round with long sticks till the snake came out.

They went back to the hut, and managed a cup of coffee. Presently they got on to ghost and Hairy Man yarns again.

"That was God's truth," said Jack, "that yarn I told you about what happened to me going up Dead Man's Pass. It was just as I told you. I was driving slowly up in that little old spring cart of mine, when something I don't know what it was made me look behind, and there was a woman walking along behind the cart with her hands on the tail-board. It was just