Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 1 (1925-01).djvu/101

100 from the quarry the day before. Tossing it on the mantel, I opened my tobacco pouch.

"Where'd ye come by that?"

Mrs. Jones was staring at the bit of blue rock as if she saw a specter hovering over it.

"Oh, that?" I replied. "Why, we dug it from the gravel the other day. Odd, isn't it? No stone like it anywhere about. Can't figure how it got here.

"Ye put it back—tonight!" she interrupted excitedly. "It's th' bugwolf stane. Man, man, ye don't know what ye did when ye took that bit o' rock from th' ground."

"The bugwolf stone?" I echoed. "What d'ye mean?"

She twisted the hem of her apron between her gnarled hands, and swallowed painfully.

"I'm a Christian woman, an' I don't set much store by th' old tales; but 'tis said a demon wolf used to roam th' hills, killin' all he met; an' when th' faithers kilt his body they buried it under a cairn o' them magic stanes, to hold his spirit in. Man, ye unstopped th' flask when ye took that stane from th' earth. He'll be runnin' loose again, a-pryin' at yer doors an' winders, and some time he'll get in, an' that'll be th' death o' ye."

I balanced the bit of rock in my palm a minute, then flipped it through the door.

"Let him come for his confounded stone," I said contemptuously, reaching for a blazing splinter to light my pipe.

The slamming of the door answered me. Mrs. Jones was scrambling down the path as fast as her old rheumatic legs would carry her.

Oct. 15, 19— RS. JONES has discharged us. Bribery, threats and entreaties are alike of no avail to bring her back. An offer to replace the blue stone mollified her temporarily: but when we went to look for it, the thing was nowhere to be found. I must have tossed it farther than I realized, yesterday.

Oct. 18, 19— HERE are certain advantages in having an assistant of the impressionable age. Alice Frasanet arrived this morning, bag and baggage, including her Aunt Anna.

Frank has been of little practical use, anyway, and the small loss of his assistance is more than compensated by Alice's services. Like the practical little person she is, Alice has taken up our care where Mrs. Jones left off, and we have already been treated to a batch of biscuit, real biscuit, American biscuit. The ladies have obtained lodgings at the Jones cottage, and if all the guile I can exercise will keep them there they shall remain till we've completed our excavations.

Oct. 19, 19— UR first real find was made today. Grubbing in a half-hearted way, I unearthed what appeared to be a human tibia; in a few more strokes we had an almost perfectly articulated skeleton out of the sand. Whoever possessed those bones in life must have been a human bean pole, for the limbs are disproportionately long. His hands and feet must have given him considerable trouble, too, for their bones are half again as long as those of any modern man’s.

We laid the frame on a blanket beside the trench and searched about for the skull. Here the mystery began, for though we churned up the sand for yards round, we could find no head. Finally, after about an hour's search, we dug out a large dog's skull, which processed neatly upon the vertebræ. We shall pack these bones carefully, and hold them to compare with further discoveries. Is it possible we have stumbled on the remnant of an ancient dog-headed people, or did the old Druids have an unrecorded cus-