Maybe they run toward the house, and maybe they run the other
way. I got a-holt of old White's hitch-strap and my boot; then I
cantered out and hitched up, and went along the road real lively. It
wasn't till towards mornin' that I turned off into the woods and tied
up for a nap. Yes, I slept _part_ of the night in the wagon."
Robert sifted all these harrowing circumstances.
"_Maybe_ they weren't stealing the horses," he hazarded. "Don't
folks ever unhitch other folks' horses to put 'em in their stable?"
Zene drew down the corners of his mouth to express impatience.
"But I'd hated to been there," Robert hastened to add.
"I guess you would," Zene observed in a lofty, but mollified way,
"if you'd seen the pile of bones I passed down the road a piece from
that house."
"Bones?"
"Piled all in a heap at the edge of the woods."
"What kind of bones, Zene?"
"Well, I didn't get out to handle 'em. But I see one skull about the
size of yours, with a cap on about the size of yours."
This was all that any boy could ask. Robert uttered a derisive "Ho!"
but he sat and meditated with pleasure on the pile of bones. It cast
a lime-white glitter on the man and woman who but for that might have
been harmless.
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