hing more than a dog, sir; and you
see there was one thing about it uncommon strange. When dad come back
that next morning, our two pointers, Nip and Juno, followed him into the
cottage. But the moment they got inside a sort of turn came over them,
and they rushed out all queer and scared; while as for the water mother
had set down for the black dog to drink, there was no getting them to
put their lips to it. Not thirsty, sir? Well, sir, seeing as there
warn't no water within six mile or so, and they'd come ten miles that
morning over the moor, you'll excuse me saying you don't know much about
dogs if you reckon they warn't thirsty!

"Coincidence you say, sir? Well, I dunno the meaning of that--maybe
it's a word you gentles gives to the things you can't explain. But I've
told you the story just as it happened, and I'd swear it's true, anyhow.
If a gentleman like you can't see daylight in it, t'ain't for the likes
of me to try; but I sticks to it that, say what folks will, the thing
was uncommon strange.... Not tried the west side, haven't you, sir?
Bless your heart, Ben, what be you a-thinking of? The birds are as thick
as blackberries down by the Grey Rock and Deadman's Hollow."

"That's a gruesome name," I said, rising and lifting my gun, while Ben
coupled up the brace of dogs. I noticed a glance exchanged between
father and son as the younger man lifted his head.

"Yes, sir," responded the former quietly; "the morning after that night
I've been telling you of, the body of a man was found down there, and
that's how the hollow got its name. Mother, she knew him again the
moment she set eyes on the dead face, for all he'd got quit of the
woman's clothes; and there warn't no mark nor wound on him, to show how
he'd come by his death. Oh, yes, sir; I ain't saying as the fog warn't
thick that night, nor as how it wouldn't have been easy enough for him
to ha' missed his footing in the dark; though to be sure there were
folks as would have it 'twarn't _that_ as killed him.... Good-day to
you, sir, and thank you kindly. Ben here'll see to your having good
sport."

* * * * *

It was vexing to find so much gross superstition still extant in this
last decade of the nineteenth century, certainly. Yet for all that, and
though the notion of a spook dog was something too much for the
materialistic mind to swallow, there is no use denying that, as I stood
an hour later in Deadman's Hollow, with the