"Bryant's never complained about his sight."
"Why do you think he's losing it?"
Jeb answered with another question. "Have yuh seen him readin' of late?"
Penny hadn't and she said so. "But he never did spend much time reading, so you can't tell anything by that."
"Yuh seen the God-defyin' sort o' men that's come tuh work here?"
Penny nodded. "I don't like their looks at all."
"Jest so. Neither would Bryant. He's left the hirin' of new hands tuh Mort an' Vince. If he'd seen Rangoon, an' Sawtell, an' some o' the rest, he'd shoot 'em on general principles in the same way a man'd step on a pizon-bad, murder-spider. Those men've been here; Bryant's had chances tuh see 'em an' done nothin'." Having delivered himself of this, Jeb resumed his chair and slipped his feet out of the shoes again. "Take's more thinkin'," he finished, letting his eyes return to far-off places.
Penny gripped her cousin's arm. "Look here, Jeb," she said, "I want to know more about things in the Basin. Everyone has been so darned quiet, and so strained-acting, that it almost seems as if the place is filled with ... with ghosts or something. What's it all about?"
Jeb fixed his pale eyes on the girl. They seemed to cover themselves with a veil. He leaned forward and spoke in a soft confidential voice.
"Cousin, t'others around here think I'm tetched in the head. None of 'em listens tuh me but you. They don't figger me worth listenin' to, but I ain't sleepin'. I see things, I think things out. I dunno what it is, I can't put my finger on't, but they's ugly happenin's in this here Basin. They'll be some killin' here."