"The skull and one of the leg bones fell down into the well when I tried to gather them up. I want to borrow some rope so I can down in there."
For a bare second Hubbard was silent.
"What you ought to do," he said, gathering himself, "is to fill up that hole. It's dangerous."
"Yes. That's so. But I'm goin' to get that skull first. It'll be a good exhibit. I'm wonderin' whether we'll ever find Harper's skeleton."
"Wait a moment," said Hubbard huskily, starting for the barn. "I'll get some rope and help you."
The two returned to the Eldridge farm. They found there the dead man's child. She had perched herself on the fallen tree.
"Damn fool!" muttered Hubbard. "Her mother lettin' her play around here!"
A pulley was rigged over the branch and the rope inserted with a board for a rest.
"I'll go down," vouchsafed Hubbard.
Simpson looked his surprise as he assented.
It took Hubbard five minutes or so to retrieve the missing skeleton parts. He brought them up, the leg bone and the grinning skull. He was pale when he hauled himself over the edge.
"I'm a-goin' to fill up that hole myself," he said.
"All right," retorted Simpson, handling the skull curiously. "Go to it."
Word traveled of the finding of the ancient skeleton, and the inhabitants began driving thither to see the sight. Simpson, a man of some ingenuity, had wired the bleached white bones together and suspended them from one of the branches of the fallen tree. The skeleton dangled and swung in the wind.
Hubbard, maddened by the delay and publicity, felt himself wearing away. He had become obsessed with conviction that if the hole were filled his mind would be at rest.
The nights of continued sleeplessness were ragging his nerves, and he was by this time unable to remain in bed. He would throw himself down, fully dressed, waiting until the others were asleep. Then he would steal out.
At first he had merely walked the roads, swinging his arms and mumbling. But as the night progressed his stride would quicken, and frequently he would take to running. He would run until his lungs were bursting and a slaver fed from his mouth. Late travelers began to catch glimpses of the fleeting figure, and the rumor grew that a ghost was haunting the locality of the well—that the skeleton walked.
Hubbard grew haggard. But he found himself unable to discontinue his nocturnal prowls, some of which took him miles, but all of which invariably wound up at one place—the well.
Here, fagged and exhausted, he would sit until the approach of dawn, staring at the swinging skeleton, mouthing incoherencies, praying, singing hymns beneath his breath, laughing. At the approach of dawn he would steal home.
At last, after interest in the skeleton has subsided and Simpson had consented to its removal, Hubbard loaded his wagon with stones and small boulders and started for the well. That first forenoon he made three trips, dumping each time a considerable quantity of stones.
Next morning he worked in an additional trip. He began to experience surcease. But on the afternoon of the second day, when he made another trip, Simpson came over from his work in an adjoining field.
"I wanted to see you yesterday," he said, quizzically regarding Hubbard. "Mrs. Harper was here. She said her little girl was playin' around here and dropped a pair of andirons down the well."
"What of it?" Hubbard jerked out.
"You got to get 'em out."
"Why?"
"Because them andirons is relics."
"But you gave me permission to fill the hole."
"I was kiddin' you," laughed Simpson. "I'm only rentin' the farm. I ain't got nothin' to do with the house and yard."
Without a word Hubbard turned to his wagon. He got onto the seat and drove off. In an hour he came back with the same rope that had been used to recover the missing portions of the skeleton. Also, he brought with him a farm laborer who did occasional work for him.
Simpson regarded Hubbard amusedly as the latter adjusted once more the pulley, arranged a bucket and then hitched his team to the end of the rope.
Patiently, bucketful by bucketful, the stones were elevated and dumped. Down below in the black interior, Hubbard labored for an hour. At six o'clock he had not found the andirons. Twice he had been compelled to come up for fresh air.
His last trip up left him so white-faced and weak that he was forced to go home.
That night he resorted to sleeping powders. But he lay and tossed, wide-eyed, through the dark hours. Sometime after midnight he got up. A light was still burning in his wife's room, and, tiptoeing down the hall, he paused at her door. In low voices the mother and daughter were conversing. To his heated imagination it seemed certain they were talking of Harper's disappearance.
Mumbling to himself he left the house. He ran down the lane to the highway and along this until he came to the Eldridge place. He determined not to stop, and succeeded in running by, like a frightened animal.
His gait accelerated. It was one best described as scurrying, as he ran crouched and low. He thought he saw some one approaching. This turned him. Back he fled with the speed of the wind.
Drawn by an irresistible force, he made straight for the Eldridge pathway. He came to the well, the entrance of which gaped at him. For a moment he stood, with eyes wide open, staring into the black depths.
Then, screaming, he plunged in head-first.
His cry, long-drawn and eerie, hung quivering on the night air.
In the Hubbard home, a quarter of a mile away, the mother and daughter heard it. The two listened with palpitating hearts. They caught one another's hands.
In a hoarse whisper the mother exclaimed:
"What's that?"
