nk dropped over his head,
and his hiding-place was hidden. But while he and Hiram stood looking
at the place where Mr. Crymble had disappeared, there sounded a
muffled squawk from the depths, there was the dull rumble of rocks,
an inward crumbling of earth where the planks were, a puff of dust,
and stillness.

"Gawd A'mighty!" blurted Hiram, aghast, "a dry well's caved in on
him."

"I told him to find a hole and crawl into it," quavered the Cap'n,
fiddling trembling finger under his nose, "but I didn't tell him to
pull the hole in after him."

Mr. Reeves, left free to extricate himself from the quilt, bellowed
to Mrs. Crymble and addressed the astonished Nute, who just then
swung into the yard.

"They murdered that man, and I see 'em do it!" he squalled, and added,
irrelevantly, "they covered my head up so I couldn't see 'em do it."

Mrs. Crymble, who had been dignifiedly keeping the castle till the
arrival of the constable, swooped upon the scene with hawk-like
swiftness.

"This day's work will cost you a pretty penny, Messers Look and
Sproul," she shrilled. "Killin' a woman's husband ain't to be settled
with salve, a sorry, and a dollar bill, Messers Sproul and Look."

"I reckon we're messers, all right," murmured the Cap'n, gazing
gloomily on the scene of the involuntary entombment of the
three-times-dead Crymble. "I couldn't prove that he was ever dead
in his life, but there's one thing I've seen with my own eyes. He
acted as his own sexton, and that's almost as unbelievable as a man's
comin' back to life again."

"I ain't lookin' for him to come back this last time," remarked Hiram,
with much conviction; "unless there's an inch drain-pipe there and
he comes up it like an angleworm. Looks from this side of the surface
as though death, funeral service, interment, and mournin' was all
over in record time and without music or flowers."

Batson Reeves brought the crowd.

It was plainly one of the opportunities of his life.

The word that he circulated, as he rattled down to Broadway's store
and back, was that Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look had attacked him with
murderous intent, and that after he had bravely fought them off they
had wantonly grabbed Mr. Dependence Crymble, jabbed him down a hole
in the ground and kicked the hole in on him.

"I've always vowed and declared they was both lunatics," cried the
returning Mr. Reeves. He darted accusatory finger at the
disconsolate pair where they stood gazing do