estion, _ain't_ it! _Yes_, sir, I k'n tell
you what's tattooed on his breast. It's jest a small, thin, blue
arrow--that's what it is; and if you don't look clost, you can't see
it. _Now_ what do you say--hey?"

Well, _I_ never see anything like that old blister for clean
out-and-out cheek.

The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his pard, and
his eye lights up like he judged he'd got the king _this_ time, and
says:

"There--you've heard what he said! Was there any such mark on Peter
Wilks's breast?"

Both of them spoke up and says:

"We didn't see no such mark."

"Good!" says the old gentleman. "Now, what you _did_ see on his breast
was a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped when he was
young), and a W, and dashes between them, so: P--B--W"--and he marked
them that way on a piece of paper. "Come, ain't that what you saw?"

Both of them spoke up again, and says:

"No, we _didn't_. We never seen any marks at all."

Well, everybody _was_ in a state of mind now, and they sings out:

"The whole _bilin'_ of 'm 's frauds! Le's duck 'em! le's drown 'em!
le's ride 'em on a rail!" and everybody was whooping at once, and
there was a rattling powwow. But the lawyer he jumps on the table and
yells, and says:

"Gentlemen--gentle_men!_ Hear me just a word--just a _single_ word--if
you PLEASE! There's one way yet--let's go and dig up the corpse and
look."

That took them.

"Hooray!" they all shouted, and was starting right off; but the lawyer
and the doctor sung out:

"Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and the boy, and fetch
_them_ along, too!"

"We'll do it!" they all shouted; "and if we don't find them marks
we'll lynch the whole gang!"

I _was_ scared, now, I tell you. But there warn't no getting away, you
know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along, straight for
the graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the
whole town at our heels, for we made noise enough, and it was only
nine in the evening.

As we went by our house I wished I hadn't sent Mary Jane out of town;
because now if I could tip her the wink she'd light out and save me,
and blow on our dead-beats.

Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on like
wildcats; and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, and the
lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver
amongst the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and most
dangersome I ever w