heard what he said!  Was there any such mark on Peter Wilks' 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, with 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 was