rtege came without the proper hush of due solemnity, for the
rough coffin that held Jerry Henderson's body was borne on a fodder
sledge and the stolid team of oxen that drew it required constant and
vociferous shouts and goading as they strained unwillingly against
their yokes. After the sledge trailed a dozen neighbors, afoot and
mounted; all plastered with mud--but the crowd caught its breath and
broke into a low murmur. There was only one casket!

As the evangelist dismounted and lifted his daughter down, the men who
were there as observers for Kinnard Towers sought places near enough to
hear every syllable.

Yet when the elderly preacher began to speak, while his daughter stood
with the dull apathy of one only half realizing, the faces of the crowd
mirrored a sort of sullen disappointment. For them the burial of the
man who was, after all, well-nigh a stranger, was secondary in
interest. It was in every material respect touching their lives and
deeper interests, Bear Cat's funeral they had come to attend. But on
that topic the bearded shepherd meant to give them no satisfaction. So
far he had made no mention of Bear Cat, and now he was concluding with
the injunction: "Let us pray."

But as he bent his head, a woman standing near the foot of the grave
raised a hand that trembled with all the violence of superstitious
fear. From her thin lips broke a half-smothered shriek, not loud but
eerie and disconcerting, and she shrilled in terrorized notes, "Air
thet a specter I sees thar?"

Many eyes followed the pointed finger and again a dismayed chorus of
inarticulate sound broke from the crowd. Just behind Blossom--herself
ghostlike in her white rigidness--had materialized a figure that had
not been there before. It was a gaunt figure whose face these people
had seen before only bronzed and aggressive. Now the cheek-bones stood
out in exaggerated prominence and the flesh was bloodlessly gray.
Though Bear Cat Stacy was present in the flesh his sudden
materialization there might well have startled a superstitious mind
into the thought that he had come not only from a bed of illness but
from one of death. Ignoring the sensation he had created, he spoke in a
whisper to the minister, and Brother Fulkerson made a quiet
announcement.

"Hit hain't no ghost, sister. Turner Stacy hes been sore sick an' nigh
ter death, but hit's pleased ther Almighty ter spare him. Let us pray."

A man near the grave began quietly working his