"Almost everybody."
"Name one."
"Well, Timothy Waters was one."
"Timothy Waters, a man that had trouble at the light! You wait before you believe the story."
"But others have said the same thing."
"Well, wait; I am going to track these stories to their start."
Thomas Trafton imagined that he was a hunter, and like one following up the trail of an animal, he endeavoured to track these slanders back to their den. Sometimes he would follow the accusations back to Timothy Waters, and then somebody else would be found to assert them, and so the trail would start away again. Amid the multitude of tracks, but without evidence of their origin, this hunter from the Trafton family was bewildered. He mentioned the affair to Dave, feeling that here was an innocent person whom others were attacking, and yet he might be entirely ignorant of the assault.
"I--I--don't want to make you uneasy, but I feel friendly more than you can imagine," said Thomas, "and I thought you ought to know about the stories that are going round."
"Oh, I suppose people are always talking. Life would be dreadful dull if there wasn't something to talk about; and if I save the world from dulness I may flatter myself that I am doing some good."
"Oh, but it isn't just gossip."