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their heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tiptoeing stealthily
down, the one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps
of the snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap.
The man moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight.
It was Muff Potter. The boys' hearts had stood still, and their hopes
too, when the man moved, but their fears passed away now. They tiptoed
out, through the broken weather-boarding, and stopped at a little
distance to exchange a parting word. That long, lugubrious howl rose on
the night air again! They turned and saw the strange dog standing
within a few feet of where Potter was lying, and FACING Potter, with
his nose pointing heavenward.
"
"
Oh, geeminy, it's HIM!" exclaimed both boys, in a breath.
Say, Tom--they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's
house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill
come in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and
there ain't anybody dead there yet."
"Well, I know that. And suppose there ain't. Didn't Gracie Miller fall
in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?"
"
Yes, but she ain't DEAD. And what's more, she's getting better, too."
All right, you wait and see. She's a goner, just as dead sure as Muff
"
Potter's a goner. That's what the niggers say, and they know all about
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