They stared at her.
They hadn’t seen anything of her Peter.
They had to go all over that again. John McLaughlin had seen him at this corner last night. Where was he now?
Wully wouldn’t be balked. Libby Keith wouldn’t be cheated. The McTaggerts stood looking at the two blankly.
Where was Jimmy McTaggert, who had been drinking with Peter last night? He ought to know.
Jimmy McTaggert was wakened from the sleep that followed his holiday spree, and dragged to the light of the morning, half clothed.
He remembered nothing. Wully turned from him wrathfully. Where was his older brother? Let Gib be brought. Gib wouldn’t have been too drunk to remember. Gib was in a far field. A boy went for him horseback. They made Libby sit down. They stood around dazed. Wully went on explaining what he knew again and again. It seemed hours before Gib appeared.
There stood Gib before them, telling the truth, and making it believed. They had come with John from O’Brien’s to be sure, and at the corner John had ridden on home, and Peter had turned and gone walking down the path towards home. That was all that Gib knew about it. Peter had walked right along, not staggering, or seeming drunk.
The men stood looking blankly at one another, fumbling among possibilities, in quietness—for one second.
Then Libby cried out.