Unsympathetic to her as the speaker had always been and still was, Mrs.
Tucker felt a vague chill creep over her that seemed to be the result of
his manner more than his words. "And that idea is . . . ?" she suggested
with pale lips.

"It's this! Fust, I don't say it means much to anybody but me. I've
heard of these warnings afore now, ez comin' only to folks ez hear them
for themselves alone, and I reckon I kin stand it, if it's the will o'
God. The idea is then--that--Spencer Tucker--WAS DROWNDED in that boat;
the idea is"--his voice was almost lost in a hoarse whisper--"that it
was no living man that kem to me that night, but a spirit that kem out
of the darkness and went back into it! No eye saw him but mine--no ears
heard him but mine. I reckon it weren't intended it should." He paused,
and passed the flap of his hat across his eyes. "The pie, you'll say, is
agin it," he continued in the same tone of voice,--"the whiskey is agin
it--a few cuss words that dropped from him, accidental like, may have
been agin it. All the same they mout have been only the little signs and
tokens that it was him."

But Mrs. Baxter's ready laugh somewhat rudely dispelled the infection
of Patterson's gloom. "I reckon the only spirit was that which you and
Spencer consumed," she said, cheerfully. "I don't wonder you're a little
mixed. Like as not you've misunderstood his plans." Patterson shook
his head. "He'll turn up yet, alive and kicking! Like as not, then,
Poindexter knows where he is all the time."

"Impossible! He would have told me," said Mrs. Tucker, quickly.

Mrs. Baxter looked at Patterson without speaking. Patterson replied by a
long lugubrious whistle.