“What was it? What did you see, Elaine?”
“Why, I guess it’s nothing. You look, girls, that dark thing on the water way over. It isn’t–it can’t be–”
But it was an overturned canoe. The rheumatic old man who had come up with the team towed it ashore, in the wake of its sister bark. As if in a dreadful dream, the girls heard the quavering tones of the old voice, his gray head shaking the while.
“Two of ’em, you say. The pretty girl in white and the little one. And me a-waiting on, for I don’t know what. It don’t seem fair, somehow.”
It was ten o’clock that evening when Jerry Morton heard the news. Ill tidings travel fast, even without the help of modern invention. One of the Snooks boys, not Andy but Elisha, an older brother, brought the word, and his manner was suggestive of a certain complacency as if he felt that his own importance was increased by his momentous tidings. He found Jerry sitting on the steps, though it was long past bedtime, his chin on his hand, and his unblinking gaze fixed upon the stars, as if he were trying to stare them out of countenance.
“I don’t b’lieve you’ve heard about the drownding.”
“What d’ye mean?” Jerry’s head lifted, yet his response was less dramatic than Elisha had hoped for.
“You know that Raymond girl, up to the Cottage. Well, she–”
With a cry, Jerry pounced upon his informer. The terrified Elisha struggled to free himself, gasping disconnected protests. “’Twasn’t me–I didn’t do it–Snake River–”
“If you’re lying to me,” warned Jerry, coming to his senses and loosening his hold, “you’ll be sorry. Mighty sorry.”