eplied Cap'n Sproul, with bitter sarcasm. "Go somewhere to get out
of my way here, for if you or any other human polecat, male or
female"--he directed withering glance at Mrs. Crymble--"gets in my
way whilst I'm doin' what's to be done, if we ain't heathen, I'll
split 'em down with this barn shovel." He had secured the implement
and tossed out the first shovelful.

There were plenty of willing volunteers. They paid no attention to
the widow's reproaches. All who could, toiled with shovels. Others
lifted the dirt in buckets. At the end of half an hour Cap'n Sproul,
who was deepest in the hole, uttered a sharp exclamation.

"By the mud-hoofed mackinaw!" he shouted, waving his shovel to
command silence, "if he ain't alive again after bein' killed the
fourth time!"

Below there was a muffled "tunk-tunk-tunk!" It was plainly the sound
of two rocks clacking together. It was appealing signal.

Ten minutes later, furious digging brought the rescuers to a flat
rock, part of the stoning of the caved-in well. In its fall it had
lodged upon soil and rocks, and when it was raised, gingerly and
slowly, they found that, below in the cavern it had preserved, there
sat Mr. Crymble, up to his shoulders in dirt.

"If some gent will kindly pass me a chaw of tobacker," he said,
wistfully, "it will kind of keep up my strength and courage till the
rest of me is dug up."

When he had been lifted at last to the edge of the well he turned
dull eyes of resentment on Mrs. Crymble.

"I wish there'd been a hole clear through to the Sandwich Isle or
any other heathen country," he said, sourly. "I'd have crawled there
through lakes of fire and seas of blood."

She lifted her voice to vituperate, but his last clinch with death
seemed to have given Mr. Crymble a new sense of power and
self-reliance. He hopped up, gathered a handful of rocks and made
at his Xantippe. His aim was not too good and he did not hit her,
but he stood for several minutes and soulfully bombarded the door
that she slammed behind her in her flight.

Then he came back and gathered more rocks from the scene of his recent
burial. He propped his thin legs apart, brandished a sizable missile,
and squalled defiance.

"I've just died for the fourth time--killed by a well cavin' in on
me. There ain't no hell where I've been. And if there's any man here
that thinks he can shove me back into this hell on earth"--he shook
his fist at the house and singled Cap'n Sproul with flami