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.” “Was--was anything said in his presence about Willis's death that you remember of?” the storekeeper pursued, with the skill of a legal crossexaminer, while the listeners stared, their cuds of tobacco compressed between their grinders. Purdy's face had grown rigid, almost as that of an important witness on the stand in court. “I can't just remember,” he said. “There was so much talk about it on all sides that day. Oh yes--now I recall that--well, you see we was all at my house, eager for news, and it struck me, you know, as if Dwight wasn't as anxious to talk as the rest--in fact, it looked like he sorter wanted to change the subject.” “Oh!” The exclamation was breathed simultaneously from several mouths. “Of course, neighbors,” Purdy began, in alarm, “don't understand me for one minute to--” But he broke off, for Dilk had something else to observe. “Them two men was at dagger's-p'ints, I've heard,” he declared. “Friends on both sides was movin' heaven an' earth to keep 'em apart. Now if Dwight _did_ take that long, roundabout road from Darley to Springtown, why, they didn't meet. But ef Dwight went the way he always _has_ tuck, an' I've seed 'im out this way often enough, why--” Dilk raised his hands and held them poised significantly in mid-air. “But the coroner's jury found,” said Purdy, “that Willis was shootin' at a target he'd stuck up on a tree with his own knife, an' that his young hoss was skittish, an'--” “All the better proof of bad blood betwixt 'em,” burst from a farmer on a nail-keg. “The truth is, some hold now that Willis was out practising so he could wing that particular game. The only thing I see agin what you-uns seem to think is that it's been kept quiet. Dwight is a lawyer an' knows the law, an' he wouldn't cover a thing like that up when all he'd have to do would be to establish proof that it was done in self-defence an' git his walking-papers.”