And I looked for the scarecrow as soon as it was light and
it was 'way off from where we saw them, and wasn't blown down at all, and
Helen saw them in the field besides--saw all of them----"
He interrupted her. "What do you mean? Try to tell me about it quietly,
child." He laid his hand on her shoulder.
She told him breathlessly (while he grew more and more visibly perturbed
and uneasy, biting his cigar to pieces and groaning at intervals) what she
and Helen had seen in the storm. When she finished he took a few quick
turns about the room with his hands thrust deep in his coat pockets, and
then, charging her to repeat the story to no one, left the house, and,
forgetting his fatigue, rapidly crossed the fields to the point where the
bizarre figures of the night had shown themselves to the two girls at the
window.
The soft ground had been trampled by many feet. The boot-prints pointed to
the northeast. He traced them backward to the southwest through the field,
and saw where they had come from near the road, going northeast. Then,
returning, he climbed the fence and followed them northward through the
next field. From there, the next, beyond the road that was a continuation
of Main Street, stretched to the railroad embankment. The track, raggedly
defined in trampled loam and muddy furrow, bent in a direction which
indicated that its terminus might be the switch where the empty cars had
stood last night, waiting for the one-o'clock freight.
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