"Jane, those hogs--" stammered Esther Isbel, to the wife of Jacobs. "Come! Look! ... Do y'u know anythin' about hogs?"
The woman ran to the window and looked out. She stiffened as had Esther.
"Dad, will those hogs--eat human flesh?" queried Jean, breathlessly.
The old man stared out of the window. Surprise seemed to hold him. A completely unexpected situation had staggered him.
"Jean--can you--can you shoot that far?" he asked, huskily.
"To those hogs? No, it's out of range."
"Then, by God, we've got to stay trapped in heah an' watch an awful sight," ejaculated the old man, completely unnerved. "See that break in the fence! ... Jorth's done that.... To let in the hogs!"
"Aw, Isbel, it's not so bad as all that," remonstrated Blaisdell, wagging his bloody head. "Jorth wouldn't do such a hell-bent trick."
"It's shore done."
"Wal, mebbe the hogs won't find Guy an' Jacobs," returned Blaisdell, weakly. Plain it was that he only hoped for such a contingency and certainly doubted it.
"Look!" cried Esther Isbel, piercingly. "They're workin' straight up the pasture!"
Indeed, to Jean it appeared to be the fatal truth. He looked blankly, feeling a little sick. Ann Isbel came to peer out of the window and she uttered a cry. Jacobs's wife stood mute, as if dazed.
Blaisdell swore a mighty oath. "-- -- --! Isbel, we cain't stand heah an' watch them hogs eat our people!"
"Wal, we'll have to. What else on earth can we do?"
Esther turned to the men. She was white and cold, except her eyes, which resembled gray flames.
"Somebody can run out there an' bury our dead men," she said.
"Why, child, it'd be shore death. Y'u saw what happened to Guy an' Jacobs.... We've jest got to bear it. Shore nobody needn't look out--an' see."
Jean wondered if it would be possible to keep from watching. The thing had a horrible fascination. The big hogs were rooting and tearing in the grass, some of them lazy, others nimble, and all were gradually working closer and closer to the bodies. The leader, a huge, gaunt boar, that had fared ill all his life in this barren country, was scarcely fifty feet away from where Guy Isbel lay.
"Ann, get me some of your clothes, an' a sunbonnet--quick," said Jean, forced out of his lethargy. "I'll run out there disguised. Maybe I can go through with it."