The air seemed to sing with the heat, and it was awful hot down in that place among the weeds. We worked like beavers getting the weeds away so we could pick into the stones and the dirt. My, it was hard work. And we hadn't been there more'n an hour when I heard some one cryin' and hollerin'. We looked over the edge of the cellar and here came Heine Missman's brother, wringin' his hands and cryin', and actin' like he was crazy. "Heine's drowned," he cried, "Heine's drowned." We climbed out of the cellar as quick as we could and ran down to the mill, for John, Heine's brother, said that Heine had stepped into the mill race. "Is the mill runnin'?" said Mitch. "No," said John. "Because if it is," said Mitch, "he's all ground up by now in the wheels." But the mill hadn't run that day, so if we could get Heine out, we could save him maybe. John couldn't swim, nor Heine. And John said that Heine had stepped into the race, thinkin' he could wade over to the dam, and he went down and down, and then didn't come up any more. John had tried to catch him by the hair, but couldn't. We were good divers, both Mitch and me, and finally I dived and got a hold of his shirt and brought him up. But he was all swelled, and blue in the face, and was dead. He'd been in about an hour before we got him. [Illustration: I Brought Heine Up] Just then the miller came up and saw what had happened. He went and got his wagon and put Heine's body in it, and we all drove into town; and finally to Heine's house, where his mother fainted and cried so you could hear her all over town. Then Mitch and me started for home. Mitch was awful solemn and said, "That might have been you or me, Skeet. What does it mean, anyway? Here's Heine just growin' up, just been around this town with us boys a few years, and now he's drowned and gone for good. Why, I can remember when he wore short dresses, and now it's all over, and it looks like life is just nuthin'." Then, after a bit, he said, "I have a presentiment." "What's that?" I asked. "Why, it's when you know somethin' is goin' to happen." "Do you mean somethin' 's goin' to happen, to you or me, Mitch?" "Well, nothin' like drownin' or dyin'," said Mitch. "I don't get it that way. But I just feel we'll never dig any more at Old Salem." "But we ain't finished there," says I. "That may be," he says, "but to-morrow is Sunday, and I've always noticed that the next week after Sunday ain't the same." We got to my gate now, and Mitch hardly said "good-by"--just went on lookin' down at the ground. I watched him till he got up the hill and up to Tom White's, then I turned in. CHAPTER XI