d man
lying yonder in Little Niggerwool that made him toss and fume while his
wife snored gently alongside him. It was something else altogether.
Finally his stirrings roused her and she asked him drowsily what ailed
him. Was he sick? Or bothered about anything?

Irritated, he answered her snappishly. Certainly nothing was bothering
him, he told her. It was a hot enough night--wasn't it? And when a man
got a little along in life he was apt to be a light sleeper--wasn't that
so? Well, then? She turned upon her side and slept again with her light,
purring snore. The squire lay awake, thinking hard and waiting for day
to come.

At the first faint pink-and-gray glow he was up and out upon the
gallery. He cut a comic figure standing there in his shirt in the half
light, with the dewlap at his throat dangling grotesquely in the neck
opening of the unbuttoned garment, and his bare bowed legs showing,
splotched and varicose. He kept his eyes fixed on the skyline below, to
the south. Buzzards are early risers too. Presently, as the heavens
shimmered with the miracle of sunrise, he could make them out--six or
seven, or maybe eight.

An hour after breakfast the squire was on his way down through the
weedfield to the county road. He went half eagerly, half unwillingly. He
wanted to make sure about those buzzards. It might be that they were
aiming for the old pasture at the head of the swamp. There were sheep
grazing there--and it might be that a sheep had died. Buzzards were
notoriously fond of sheep, when dead. Or, if they were pointed for the
swamp, he must satisfy himself exactly what part of the swamp it was. He
was at the stake-and-rider fence when a mare came jogging down the road,
drawing a rig with a man in it. At sight of the squire in the field the
man pulled up.

"Hi, squire!" he saluted. "Goin' somewheres?"

"No; jest knockin' about," the squire said--"jest sorter lookin' the
place over."

"Hot agin--ain't it?" said the other.

The squire allowed that it was, for a fact, mighty hot. Commonplaces of
gossip followed this--county politics and a neighbor's wife sick of
breakbone fever down the road a piece. The subject of crops succeeded
inevitably. The squire spoke of the need of rain. Instantly he regretted
it, for the other man, who was by way of being a weather wiseacre,
cocked his head aloft to study the sky for any signs of clouds.

"Wonder whut all them buzzards are doin' yonder, squire," he said,
pointing