If the weather became too hot for coat and vest the proud dignitary fastened the badges to his suspenders, and their presence glorified the otherwise humble "galluses." On the fourth day after the abduction Marshal Crow was suddenly aroused from his lethargy by the news that the peace and security of the neighbourhood was being imposed upon.
"The dickens you say!" he observed, abandoning the perpetual grip upon his straggling chin whiskers.
"Yes, sir," responded the excited small boy, who, with two companions, had run himself quite out of breath all over town before he found the officer at Harkin's blacksmith shop.
"Well, dang 'em!" said Mr.Crow impressively.
"We was skatin' in the marsh when we heerd 'em plain as day," said the other boy.

"You bet I'm nuvver goin' nigh that house ag'in." "Sho! Bud, they ain't no sech thing as ghosts," said Mr.Crow; "it's tramps." "You know that house is ha'nted," protested Bud.

"Wasn't ole Mrs.Rank slew there by her son-in-law?
Wasn't she chopped to pieces and buried there right in her own cellar ?" "Thunderation, boy, that was thirty year ago!" "Well, nobody's lived in the ha'nted house sence then, has they?
Didn't Jim Smith try to sleep there oncet on a bet, an' didn't he hear sech awful noises 'at he liked to went crazy ?" insisted Bud.
[Illustration: The haunted house] "I _do_ recollect that Jim run two mile past his own house before he could stop, he was in sech a hurry to git away from the place.

But Jim didn't _see_ anything.

Besides, that was twenty year ago.