《Slime》（史莱姆）三(8)

Barnaby, bewildered, stared at him. "What you gettin' at?"
Old Man Gowse repeated what he had been telling all day in Clinton Center.
He shook his head when he finished, adding. "I wouldn't go huntin' in that swamp tonight for–ten thousand dollars!"
Rupert Barnaby threw back his head and laughed. He was a big man, muscular, resourceful and level-headed–little given even to mild flights of the imagination.
"Gowse," he laughed, "no use you givin' me those spook stories! Your cow just got loose and wandered off. Why, I ain't even seen a bobcat in that swamp for over a year!"

Old Man Gowse set his lips in a grim line. "Maybe," he said, as he turned away, "you'll see something worse than a wildcat in that swamp tonight!"
Shaking his head, Barnaby took off after his impatient hound. Old Man Gowse was getting queer all right. One of these days he would probably go off altogether and have to be locked up.
Jibbe ran ahead, sniffing, darting from one ditch to another. As twilight closed in, Barnaby angled off the main road onto a twisting path which led into Wharton's Swamp.