"What about the river?" Watson broke in. "You still got water in the South Fork?"
"Way down for this time o' year. But we got enough."
Several people had stopped to listen. One of them, a big, tow-headed Swede, burst out excitedly. "Mister, you got the same trouble as my cousin. His crops, they're growin' backwards!"
There was more of the same impossible talk. Jerry made an excuse to get away to his office. He sat at his desk and stared out the window.
There wasn't any problem, he tried to tell himself. Anything he could not measure by experience and logic was out. And that had to include giant paw-prints and mysteriously missing objects as well as radishes that wouldn't grow.
Dark Valley was taking on life and freshness. Fact. The South Fork, and portions of the North Fork, seemed to be losing fertility. Fact. But to conclude from this that Dark Valley was gaining at the expense of the others—that was the road no reasonable man could allow himself to take.
From his window, he saw the huge old trees that shaded Wide Bend. They looked suddenly wrong. Weren't they less green, less thick than before? The buildings and streets looked dingier, too. And when did all those broken fences, cracked windows, missing shingles show up...?
Jerry lunged from his chair and strode up and down the room. Then the telephone bell tore through his nerves. He grabbed the instrument.
"Watson. I just wanted to tell you, two boys have been reported missin'."
"No!"