Page:Weird Tales Volume 42 Number 06 (1950-09).djvu/28

". .I may not believe in them, but I am afraid of them."

At those words the three men in front of the country filling station fell quickly silent. Whether they were amused or shocked, I, for one, couldn't tell. I just leaned back in the rear seat of Mr. Beau Sawtelle's sedan, where nobody could see me. Mr. Beau Sawtelle drummed his fat knuckles on the steering wheel. He looked at his blonde niece Terry, then over his heavy shoulder at me, and finally at the tallest and oldest of the men. Mr. Beau was thick and glumly alert, like a toad; like the car-driving toad in that Wind in the Willows story. For some reason Terry herself had mentioned the story and told a piece of it, right after they'd seen me up the highway with my thumb stuck out; and stopped to give me a lift. Not that Mr. Beau Saw-