Page:Weird Tales Volume 35 Issue 04 (1940-07).djvu/39

heat from his flushed, seamed brow. He said, with casual courtesy; “Howdy, Mister Rabbit!”

The animal immediately finished its crossing of the road, and sat up in a tussock of grass, gazing while Pitts started the car again. Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant, big and blond and bespectacled, returned the gaze of those bulging black eyes. They seemed to have a green flash in them. He made no remark, but appeared deeply interested, and he was. He had come all the way to Crispinville for tire very purpose of learning about the custom of rabbit-greeting.

After they rounded a curve and left the little town well out of sight, Judge Pursuivant ventured his query:

“How old is that custom of speaking to rabbits, Mr. Pitts? And how did it start?”

Pitts scratched his grizzled head. He was little and spry-looking, with a face as red as a rooster’s comb. “Dunno, Judge Pursuivant. Ain’t kept up much on things, been pretty busy with my work. But I guess it’s been goin’ on since the Year One. . . .” He took a hand from the wheel and pointed ahead. “There’s my place, up yonder, next to Hungry Hill. Your friend’s rented a room there for you. You and him are my only boarders this summer.”

A phrase had caught the judge’s ear. “Hungry Hill?” he repeated, and gazed at the great green swelling, with its thatchy covering of evergreen brush and thicket. “It doesn’t look hungry.”

“I think that’s the old Injun name. And there’s a cave or pit, like an open mouth—” The driver broke off. “Well, here we are, getting there.”

The house nestled comfortably at the foot of the big hill, with plump-looking trees around it—a house old and modest, but well built and well kept, with a stable and barn and rail-enclosed stock pen behind.

As the car stopped, someone came out on the porch and waved a long arm, then hurried down to shake hands with Pursuivant.

It was Ransome. He looked much improved in health and spirits since Pursuivant had last seen him, at New York in early spring. The doctors had apparently sent him to the right part of the country to get over his nervous breakdown. He was still gaunt, but there was color in his flat checks and sparkle in the dark eyes set deep under the bushy brows. Ransome was forty and looked younger, with a square, shallow jaw and black hair and mustache like curls of astrakhan.

“I saw your train come in, over yonder along the horizon,” he told the judge, “and I sat out here to wait for Mr. Pitts to bring you back. Come on, both of you, and have a drink.”

THEY followed him into a pleasant front room, with ancient flower-figured paper and white-painted woodwork, and massive old furniture that was older and better preserved than any of them. Ransome had set out a tray, with bottles, glasses, and a bowl of cracked ice.

“I thought that rabbit legend would fetch you when I wrote to you about it,” he said to Pursuivant. “You collect such things, don’t you? Hard to believe—but I’ve seen the bunny greeted on every road and path in Crispinville Township.”

“Mr. Pitts here told me something about it,” said Pursuivant. “Not much, though —not as much as I’d like to hear.”

“Nobody seems to know much about it,” Ransome said, pouring. “It’s pretty well a local thing. Over in the next county, people hadn’t even heard of it— said I was making it up. There’s ice here, gentlemen. Take it or leave it?”

“Take it,” said Pitts, with relish.

“Leave it,” said Pursuivant, "and not much soda. ... If you haven’t any infor-