Page:Weird Tales Volume 4 Number 2 (1924-05-07).djvu/93

There was a problem when proofreading this page.

What Was It, This Fearsome Visitor of
the Night That So Terribly Shook
the Nerves of Two Strong Men?


Just Bones

By SAMUEL STEWART MIMS

I have lived beyond my three-score years and ten. If seventy years is the maximum age allotted to man, then the Timekeeper has allowed thirteen more to slip by without ringing the bell. Why? I do not know.

Age is the old man's armor. Because of his age he is pardoned for thinking that the best men and women lived fifty years ago when he was in his prime.

After these admissions, if it occurs to you that I am overstating the strength of body and other qualifications of my friend Chad Wells and myself, kindly remember that I sit in retrospection, day after day, rehearsing in my mind, over and over, the episode that was enacted fifty years ago.

It is past my understanding that I did not become insane, as did Chad Wells. Perhaps I was as strong physically as Chad was back in those days, but I never even claimed or pretended, although I was mannish and somewhat given to self-exultation at that age, to be as fearless as he was. Many times have I heard old Wilbur Brownley say of him, "That fool ain't skeered of man, beast or devil," and I always thought the strong assertion well justified.

Strange things happen in this world. Forty-two years ago Chad Wells died,

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.