“Oh, my land,” Zacheus ejaculated, in some disgust. “A stovepipe hat on a broken nail! No, _sir_! The hat was found on the head of the vally’s brother, and on the nail was a piece of Mr. Dalton’s linen coat that everybody knew, and in the well stickin’ up out of the water and kinder lodged on the stones was one of his boots with his foot in it! Joel was that faint when he seen it that the bartender had to hold on to him to keep him from pitchin’ head fust inter the well. “‘Here’s murder,’ says ’ee. ‘Mari, come here.’ “She come, with her knees knockin’ together and a lump in her throat as big as a goose aig. “‘Mari,’ says ’ee, ‘where did you git water for breakfast?’ “‘From the spring, over there,’ pointin’ to the orchard. ‘Miss Dalton said she’d rather have the water from there, ’cause that in the well was low,’ says Mari, her tongue so thick she could hardly talk. “‘Have you often got water from there,’ says Joel. “‘No,’ says Mari, and ‘Yes, very often,’ says Miss Dalton. “She had come out to where the tracks was in the mud, and was white now as her gown and leanin’ on to Mari. “‘Miss Dalton,’ says Joel, ‘your husband is in the well.’ “Then she screeched so loud that some of the neighbors heard her and come runnin’ to see what was the matter, while she made as if she’d throw herself over the curb, but Joel catched her by her clothes and pulled her back. “‘Oh, John, John. Is he dead? Get him out, somebody,’ she cried. “‘That’s what we are goin’ to do. Who’ll go down after him?’ Joel said, and, as no one offered, he pulled off his shoes and stockin’s, and, tyin’ a rope round his waist, went down himself, clingin’ to the slippery stones, and got him up dead as a door-nail, with the marks of two big hands round his throat, as if he had been seized and choked till the life was out of him, and then been chucked into the well as the nearest place to hide him.” At this point Uncle Zacheus became so excited and agitated that he was obliged to wait a few minutes before describing more of the terrible scenes which shook the little village of Ridgefield to its depths that summer morning, when the dead man lay upon the grass in his dripping garments, a bruise on his forehead where he must have struck a stone in his fall, and a look of horror in his wide-open eyes as he lay with his face upturned to the sky. “Oh, John, who could have done this?” Mrs. Dalton moaned, as she knelt beside him, her arms across his chest and her long curls falling over his swollen features. Unnoticed by any one, the little boy, Robbie, had crept down the doorsteps and came toddling across the yard to the group by the well. “Papa, mam-ma,” he said, laying one hand on his mother’s head and the other on his father’s wet hair. “Papa, wake up. I’s ’f’aid,” he said, shaking the drops of water from his fingers and beginning to cry.