They
(Continued from page 116)
"Back there in the canyon, I'll bet," the driver said. "That's where we pick him up every night, nearly. Did he warn you about—about anything, Mister?"
"He did," I admitted.
"That's old Collins' weakness," the driver nodded. "I reckon it's only natural, seein' as his granddaughter got killed there only last year. Reckon he got to puttin' two an' two together with old Timmons and they figgered out this 'They' business. They're both harmless enough, though—long as we let 'em guard that there canyon."
"Then—there's nothing dangerous in there?" I asked slowly.
"Dangerous? Why, Mister, what could there be? This here's a civilized country, ain't it?" The driver slid his car into gear. "Well, good night, sir. We'll go git the old feller now. Good night!"
It wasn't until some time later that I began to wonder why every man in that car should have been carrying a rifle; or why their faces were white and set, as the old man's face had been.
Then one day I read in a newspaper about a certain Samuel B. Timmons, age 87, who had been crushed by a falling boulder and unrecognizably mangled. It was an accident, of course—so the paper said. . . .
Dead Man's Canyon is still there, if anyone cares to make a further investigation. For my part . . .
Dagon[1]
I AM writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer, and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below. Do not think from my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or a degenerate. When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may
- ↑ From WEIRD TALES for October, 1923.
