Ought he to have prepared his friend for this meeting? Should he inquire of the farmer what the mystery was all about, anyway?
Hiram remembered how Orrin had slipped out of the house and kept away when this farmer and the lawyer had appeared at Sunnyside the previous winter. What would he do now?
And just then the teamster turned the trotting horses into the paddock and brought them to a standstill with a flourish.
"Whoa, there!" he shouted. "Where do you want these calves put, Mr. Strong? Here, you—By crippity! how the deuce did you come here, Ted Chester?"
Hiram jumped off the rear of the wagon and ran around. Leaning on a fork the young man he knew as Orrin Post confronted the farmer.
"So it is you, is it, Mr. Post?" the younger man said.
"You mean to say you've been here all this time? And that lawyer and me have been right here and asked—"
Suddenly he swung to look at Hiram. He shook a finger at him.
"What did you mean by telling me and that lawyer you didn't know this fellow?"
"I did not. You did not make me understand that this was the man you were looking for," declared Hiram without looking at his friend.