After a time Ches came down with a heavenly smile on his face, so I knew the goat hadn't smothered yet; an' then we went into the house an' handled the lights in just the regular way; but when the time came, instead of goin' to bed, we went out an' cooned up a big tree, about on a level with the mow-window. Ches had nailed up a kind of platform, which was rickety enough to keep a sensible man on the watch; but first I knew he was wakin' me up. He had his hand over my mouth, an' whispered, "He's in the yard now." I ain't one o' them what yawns an' grunts an' stretches; I wake up like an antelope--all in a bunch. The' was a little rustlin' back in some bushes over by the fence. Then, after a pause, we heard a queer scratchin' noise. He was climbin' up a tree at the back o' the barn so as to get in through a scuttle in the roof. 'T was gettin' interestin', an' I got out my guns an' held 'em ready. Ches had a whole arsenal spread out around him, an' I could easy see a week's work ahead of me, a-policin' up the premises. The sky was just literally soggy with stars, an' you could see the outline of things purty plain. It was one o' those nights when everything is so still that you hear with the inside of your head, an' any little real noise fair puts a crimp in ya. We was leanin' on the rail of Ches's platform, when all of a sudden we hear the greatest jabberin' ever a human man heard. A goat an' a Chinaman speaks the same langwidge, an' goodness only knows what Billy Buck was a-tellin' him but the tone was insistent an' the effect was most exhilaratin'. I had my ears stretched out to catch every sound--an' sounds wasn't nowise scarce just then. Squeals an' groans, an' wrastlin' an' blows, kept a feller all keyed up, an' we was bitin' our lips to keep from laughin'--an' then it happened! The door o' that mow flew open as though it was struck by eleven engines, a dark form shot out, followed by two more--an' then the devil, himself, poked his head out through that haymow window. Talk about faces--Lord! I attended a ghost dance over in the Sioux country oncet; but it was a Sunday-school picnic alongside the face that poked its way out of that door. The' was rings of fire around the eyes, nose, an' mouth, the whiskers was one long waverin', ghastly flame, an' the horns was two others. The' was a blue gritchety sort o' smoke curlin' up around the face, an' my heart laid right down in its tracks an' rolled over on its back. I only saw that face a second, but I can shut my eyes an' see it right now. Gosh!