appointed by the old lady to do the work, and Douglas accompanied his
father. Old Johnny Brown appeared while the work was in process.

The cemetery was fenced in, but except for a few simple headstones and
monuments, it was unadorned.

"Queer the women folks have never fixed this place up a little," said
Peter Knight, standing waist-deep in the grave, with John. "Most places
I've been, women keep the graves like they would a little garden."

Charleton Falkner, resting on a neighboring headstone, smiled
sardonically. "Lost Chief women have enough to do without dolling
up graves."

Cold sweat stood on Doug's forehead. He stared from the gaping grave to
the murmuring line of pines that marked the end of the cemetery and the
beginning of the Forest Reserve, and shuddered. He had not been sleeping
well since the night of the murder. Johnny Brown, small and very thin,
with a scraggly iron-gray beard hung with little icicles and his blue
eyes watering with the cold, moved away from the headstone against which
he had been resting after his turn in the grave.

"That boy," he said, jerking his elbow at Doug, "will be massified for
many a year for driving the preacher out of Lost Chief."

"How do you mean--massify!" demanded Doug, gruffly. Johnny might be
half-witted, but his remarks were curiously penetrating sometimes.

"I mean massify," grunted Johnny.