Old Purdy was speaking of how the children had discovered the body, and remarked that it would have been found several hours sooner if Carson Dwight had only taken the shorter road that day to Springtown instead of the longer.
“Why, Dwight come from Darley, didn't he?” asked Dilk, as he wrote down the number of eggs he had counted on a piece of brown paper on the counter and waited before continuing.
“Why, yes,” Purdy made answer; “he told me, as we were goin' through the work he had to do at my house, that he had gone to Springtown an' stayed all that night an' then rid on to me.”
The store-keeper's hands hovered over the basket for an instant, then they rested on its edge. “Well, I can't make out what under the sun Dwight went so far out o' his way for. It's fully five mile farther, and the road is so rough and washed out that it's mighty nigh out of use.”
“Well, that does look kind o' funny, come to think of it,” admitted Purdy, as he gazed into the bland faces around him. “I never thought of it before, but it certainly looks odd, to say the least.”
“Of course thar may not be a thing in it,” said Dilk, in a guarded tone, “but it does all seem strange, especially after we've heard so much talk about the threats passin' betwixt them very two men. I mean, you see, neighbors, that it sort o' looks, providential that—that Dan met with the accident before Dwight an' him come together over here. That's what I mean.”
All heads nodded gravely, all minds were busy, each in its own individual way, and stirred by something more exciting than the mere accidental death of Willis or the formality of his burial.
There was a rather prolonged silence broken only by the click of the eggs which Dilk was counting into a new tin dish-pan. When he had finished he weighed out the coffee and emptied it into the white, smoothly ironed poke Purdy's wife had sent along for that purpose. Then he looked straight into Purdy's eyes.
“Did you notice—if thar ain't no harm in axin'—whether Dwight seemed—well, anyways upset or—or bothered while he was at your house?”
“Well, I didn't,” replied the farmer; “but my wife was in the room while he was doin' the writin' that had to be done, an' I remember now she axed me after he left ef he was a drinkin' man. I told her no, I didn't think he was now, though he used to be sorter wild, an' I wanted to know why she axed me. She said she never had seed anybody's hands shake like his did while he held the pen, an' that he had a quar look about the eyes like he'd lost a power o' sleep.”