AFTER breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how he come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to.  He said it would fetch bad luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us; he said a man that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting around than one that was planted and comfortable.  That sounded pretty reasonable, so I didn't say no more; but I couldn't keep from studying over it and wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for.

We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat.  Jim said he reckoned the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd a knowed the money was there they wouldn't a left it.  I said I reckoned they killed him, too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that.  I says:

"Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday? You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin with my hands.  Well, here's your bad luck!  We've raked in all this truck and eight dollars besides.  I wish we could have some bad luck like this every day, Jim."

"Never you mind, honey, never you mind.  Don't you git too peart.  It's a-comin'.  Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'."

It did come, too.  It was a Tuesday that we had that talk.  Well, after dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the ridge, and got out of tobacco.  I went to the cavern to get some, and found a rattlesnake in there.  I killed him, and curled him up on the foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some fun when Jim found him there.  Well, by night I forgot all about the snake, and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light the snake's mate was there, and bit him.