There lay Joe and
the small dried-up carcase of him weren't much the worse seemingly in that
cold, dry place; but Amos shivered and went goose-flesh down his spine,
for half the poor little man's face was eat away by some unknown beast.
Joe's brother sat down then with his brains swimming in his skull, and for
a bit he was too horrified to do ought but shiver and sweat; and then his
wits steadied down and he saw that what was so awful in itself yet carried
in its horror just that ray of hope he wanted now to push him on.
His instinct was always terrible strong for self-preservation, and his
thoughts leapt forward; and he saw that if a fox had bit poor dead Joe,
the creature must have come from somewheres. Of course a fox can go where
a man cannot, yet that foxes homed here meant hope for Amos; and there
also was the blessed torch he'd took from his dead brother's breast.
He nerved himself and felt all over the poor corpse and found Joe's purse
and his tobacco pouch and the two pipes he was reported to have bought at
Exeter; and doubtless he'd bought the electric torch also, for Amos knew
that his brother possessed no such thing afore. But there it was: he'd
been tempted to buy the toy, and though it couldn't bring him back to
life, there was just a dog's chance it might save his brother's. Amos knew
the thing wouldn't last very long alight, so he husbanded it careful and
only turned it on when his hands couldn't tell him what he wanted to know.
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