"Along about half after ten, I should say," she answered.
Fred looked at his chums, inquiringly.
"Just to the dot," declared Bristles, "Mebbe you remember that I said it was some time after ten when Colon broke away. Then we stood talkin' at the gate a little bit; and when he got this far on his mile dash up to the graveyard, it must have been close to the half hour. That tallies fine, Fred."
"What was it you heard, ma'am?" Fred continued, after the talkative Bristles had had his say, and subsided again.
"Why, I'd gone to bed long before. My man is as deaf as a post, and never hears a thing. I thought I caught a shout, like a boy whooping. We've got a few trees of fine Baldwin apples back here, and twice now, boys from Riverport have raided the orchard; so I'm on the watch to fire a gun out of the window to give 'em a scare."
"And you thought they were in your trees again; did you?" asked Fred, when the woman paused.
"That's what struck me at first," she went on; "but as soon as I got up I knew better; because all the noise came from up the road there. I stayed by the window listening and heard a lot of shouting. Then it was all still, and pretty soon a covered wagon went past the house."
"Which way; toward Riverport or in the other direction?" Fred inquired.
"Oh!" the woman replied, "it was going up toward the graveyard; but then I didn't think that so strange, because I've seen that same limpy white horse, and the covered wagon, go by here lots of times for years now."
"That is, you knew it, and could even tell it in the moonlight?" the boy asked.