Why not?" says the sheriff. "Where'll you be?"

This stumped Mitch--he didn't want to say. The sheriff walked away and
Mitch says: "Now I see what we have to do. We must clean up that Peter
Lukins' cellar right off and get off to Hannibal to see Tom. One thing
will happen after another if we let it, and we'll never get away, and
never see Tom. I wish this here Doc Lyon was in Halifax."

Says I, "Who wanted to talk to him in the jail, you or me?"

"Why, I did," said Mitch.

"Well, then, you made the tangle, Mitch, and we'll have to stick. For
it's a jail offense to run away from a subpoena, my pa says so, and we
are witnesses, and will have to stick."

"Well, then," says Mitch, "if we do, and the whole month of August goes
by, and school commences before we get off, we'll throw the school and
go anyway. My mind is made up. Dern it, I never dreamed of gettin'
tangled in the law for a little thing like seein' Doc Lyon in jail. It's
awful. Look here, you go to your pa and get me off and get off
yourself."

I knew I couldn't do that, that pa wouldn't do it, and I said so. And
Mitch looked terribly worried. And he said, "Let's go out to Salem and
finish up Peter Lukins'--right now."

The air seemed to sing with the heat, and it was awful hot down in that
place among the weeds. We worked like beavers getting the weeds away so
we could pick into the stones and the dirt. My, it was hard work. And we
hadn't been there more'n an hour when I heard some one cryin' and
hollerin'. We looked over the edge of the cellar and here came Heine
Missman's brother, wringin' his hands and cryin', and actin' like he was
crazy. "Heine's drowned," he cried, "Heine's drowned."

We climbed out of the cellar as quick as we could and ran down to the
mill, for John, Heine's brother, said that Heine had stepped into the
mill race.

"Is the mill runnin'?" said Mitch.

"No," said John.

"Because if it is," said Mitch, "he's all ground up by now in the
wheels."

But the mill hadn't run that day, so if we could get Heine out, we could
save him maybe. John couldn't swim, nor Heine. And John said that Heine
had stepped into the race, thinkin' he could wade over to the dam, and
he went down and down, and then didn't come up any more. John had tried
to catch him by the hair, but couldn't.

We were good divers, both Mitch and me, and finally I dived and got a
hold of his shirt and brought him up. But he was all swelled, and blue
in the face, and