"And," Brent continued, "I fear I'll have to go through the reception room of one of your friends."
"Why, this is serious, Brent! Whom do you mean?"
"It might be serious," the engineer laughed. "It's a chap named Potter—very much in love with you."
The Colonel looked grave. "His cabin burned down this spring; I supposed he had moved away!"
"No, he is rebuilding," Brent casually replied, and glancing slyly across at the serious face, murmured: "He doesn't think you had a right to burn him out."
Colonel May sprang to his feet: "The impudence of him, sir!" he wrathfully exclaimed. "The impudence of him! Why, sir, he grossly insulted—" and quickly remembering that this insult to Jane must not be known, added: "insulted me, sir! Of course, I had a right to burn him out!"
"I'm glad you did," Brent soothingly agreed. "I only knew the facts yesterday, when he happened to be telling about it."
"Telling about it! What do you mean, sir? What lie could that scoundrel have invented?"
For a moment Brent looked the excited man steadily in the eyes, and the Colonel realized that further dissimulation was useless. After this silent message had passed between them, he said:
"I was resting under a tree yesterday, back from the road. As a matter of fact, I was trying to write a verse. Dale and Bob came by on horseback. Potter, who it seems has returned from his long and mysterious absence with Tom Hewlet, appeared pretty well up the hill on the other side. Seeing Dale, he yelled at him, and shot his pistol in the air, and—and said a lot of things about the fire. He was too far away for them to get him."