Both Miss Phipps and the light keeper seemed preoccupied. The former's round, wholesome face was clouded over and the captain was tugging at his thick beard and drawing his bushy eyebrows together in a frown. He was a burly, broad-shouldered man, with a thin-lipped mouth, and a sharp gray eye. He looked like one hard to drive and equally hard to turn, the sort from which fanatics are made.
Primmie scuttled away to the dining room. Galusha rose.
“Good-afternoon, Captain Hallett,” he said.
Jethro regarded him from beneath the heavy brows.
“You know Mr. Bangs, Cap'n Jeth,” said Martha. “You met this mornin', didn't you?”
The light keeper nodded.
“We run afoul of each other over to the graveyard,” he grunted. “Well, Martha, I don't know what more there is to say about—about that thing. I've told you all I know, I cal'late.”
“But I want to talk a little more about it, Cap'n Jeth. If Mr. Bangs will excuse us we'll go out into the dinin' room. Primmie's up in her room by this time. You will excuse us, won't you, Mr. Bangs? There was a little business matter the cap'n and I were talkin' about.”
Galusha hastened to say that he himself had been on the point of going to his own room—really he was.
Miss Martha asked if he was sure.