It was quite apparent to Kenneth that they did not wish to discuss the matter. He waited a few moments before remarking:
"I saw a light moving through the woods above here,—a lantern, I took it to be,—just after I was awakened by the barking of the dogs. I thought at first it was that which set the dogs off on a rampage."
Striker was looking at him intently under his bushy eyebrows, his knife poised halfway to his lips. While he could not see Eliza, who was at the stove behind him, he was struck by the fact that there was a brief, significant suspension of activity on her part; the scrape of the "turnover" in the frying-pan ceased abruptly.
"A lantern up in the woods?" said Striker slowly, looking past Gwynne at Eliza.
"A light. It may not have been a lantern."
"Which way was it movin'?"
"In that direction," indicating the south.
The turning of the flap-jacks in the pan was resumed. Striker relaxed a little.
"Hunters, I reckon, goin' down stream for wild duck and geese this mornin'. There's a heap o' ducks an' geese passin' over—"
"See here, Phineas," broke in his wife suddenly, "what's the sense of sayin' that? You know it wasn't duck hunters. Nobody's out shooting ducks with the river as high as it is down this way, an' Mr. Gwynne knows it, if he's got half as much sense as I think he has."