"Lot o' thinkin' tuh git done," he repeated musingly, as he pushed his tapering hands deep into the pockets of faded dungarees that ended halfway between his knees and shoe-tops. Penny waited, knowing that Jeb would have more to say if given sufficient time. Jeb spat through teeth that were large and horsy. Then he took off a battered hat that was ventilated with several holes, and scratched the naked part of his head that was constantly widening with the ebbing of his thin, sandy-colored hair. "Yuh know, Penelope," he said at length, "it's writ' in Scripture that the Lord tempers the wind tuh the shorn lamb." So Jeb was in one of the Scripture-quoting moods. "What about it?" asked Penny. "I've heard of that, and I've always thought that if the lamb hadn't been shorn, the wind wouldn't have had to be tempered." Jeb looked at the girl reprovingly and went on. "Mebbe, reasonin' along them same lines, it's the Lord's will tuh blind Uncle Bryant so's he can't see what goes on around here." "Meaning what?" asked Penny quickly. "Meanin' it'd save Bryant a powerful lot of mental sufferin' an' bloody sweat if he didn't see too much." Penny rose and faced her cousin directly. "Jeb," she said, "is it true that Uncle Bryant's eyes are going back on him?" "Dunno." "But you think they are?" "Bryant's never complained about his sight." "Why do you think he's losing it?" Jeb answered with another question. "Have yuh seen him readin' of late?" Penny hadn't and she said so. "But he never did spend much time reading, so you can't tell anything by that." "Yuh seen the God-defyin' sort o' men that's come tuh work here?" Penny nodded. "I don't like their looks at all." "Jest so. Neither would Bryant. He's left the hirin' of new hands tuh Mort an' Vince. If he'd seen Rangoon, an' Sawtell, an' some o' the rest, he'd shoot 'em on general principles in the same way a man'd step on a pizon-bad, murder-spider. Those men've been here; Bryant's had chances tuh see 'em an' done nothin'." Having delivered himself of this, Jeb resumed his chair and slipped his feet out of the shoes again. "Take's more thinkin'," he finished, letting his eyes return to far-off places. Penny gripped her cousin's arm. "Look here, Jeb," she said, "I want to know more about things in the Basin. Everyone has been so darned quiet, and so strained-acting, that it almost seems as if the place is filled with ... with ghosts or something. What's it all about?" Jeb fixed his pale eyes on the girl. They seemed to cover themselves with a veil. He leaned forward and spoke in a soft confidential voice. "Cousin, t'others around here think I'm tetched in the head. None of 'em listens tuh me but you. They don't figger me worth listenin' to, but I ain't sleepin'. I see things, I think things out. I dunno what it is, I can't put my finger on't, but they's ugly happenin's in this here Basin. They'll be some killin' here."