The Cap'n, with chin over his shoulder, saw Mr. Crymble scuff aside some frozen dirt in a corner of the barnyard, raise a plank with his bony fingers and insert his slender figure into the crevice disclosed, with all the suppleness of a snake. The plank dropped over his head, and his hiding-place was hidden. But while he and Hiram stood looking at the place where Mr. Crymble had disappeared, there sounded a muffled squawk from the depths, there was the dull rumble of rocks, an inward crumbling of earth where the planks were, a puff of dust, and stillness. "Gawd A'mighty!" blurted Hiram, aghast, "a dry well's caved in on him." "I told him to find a hole and crawl into it," quavered the Cap'n, fiddling trembling finger under his nose, "but I didn't tell him to pull the hole in after him." Mr. Reeves, left free to extricate himself from the quilt, bellowed to Mrs. Crymble and addressed the astonished Nute, who just then swung into the yard. "They murdered that man, and I see 'em do it!" he squalled, and added, irrelevantly, "they covered my head up so I couldn't see 'em do it." Mrs. Crymble, who had been dignifiedly keeping the castle till the arrival of the constable, swooped upon the scene with hawk-like swiftness. "This day's work will cost you a pretty penny, Messers Look and Sproul," she shrilled. "Killin' a woman's husband ain't to be settled with salve, a sorry, and a dollar bill, Messers Sproul and Look." "I reckon we're messers, all right," murmured the Cap'n, gazing gloomily on the scene of the involuntary entombment of the three-times-dead Crymble. "I couldn't prove that he was ever dead in his life, but there's one thing I've seen with my own eyes. He acted as his own sexton, and that's almost as unbelievable as a man's comin' back to life again." "I ain't lookin' for him to come back this last time," remarked Hiram, with much conviction; "unless there's an inch drain-pipe there and he comes up it like an angleworm. Looks from this side of the surface as though death, funeral service, interment, and mournin' was all over in record time and without music or flowers." Batson Reeves brought the crowd. It was plainly one of the opportunities of his life. The word that he circulated, as he rattled down to Broadway's store and back, was that Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look had attacked him with murderous intent, and that after he had bravely fought them off they had wantonly grabbed Mr. Dependence Crymble, jabbed him down a hole in the ground and kicked the hole in on him. "I've always vowed and declared they was both lunatics," cried the returning Mr. Reeves. He darted accusatory finger at the disconsolate pair where they stood gazing down upon the place of Crymble's sepulture. "They was hatchin' a plot and I busted it, and now this is what they've done for revenge. And I'll leave it to Mis' Crymble herself, who stands there and who saw it all."