Page:War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy, John Luther Long, 1913.djvu/306

WAR, as the brauchs do when they witchcraft one. I couldn't open my mouth, nor stir a hand or foot. What do you think of that? And yet it's true.

I think it must have been ten minutes before I shivered and the sweat poured out and the spell broke. But that was, maybe, because Dave had changed his thoughts. That is the way with a brauch.

"What have you heard?" asks Dave, pointing outward. And I hardly knew his voice.

"Just a word here and there," answers I. "I don't know whether it's quarreling or loving or hell. I got to put it together first."

"It's nothing," says Dave, "don't put it together and don't think of it again—nothing—nothing—nothing!"

But he shrieks the last word, and laughs like he's going crazy.

"Dave, what's up?" I asks him. "You sick? Shall I ride for the doctor?"

Still nothing but the white face and the flaming eyes and the hoarse laughter for another ten minutes. We could still hear the two 290