"We haven't been anywhere near your cow pasture, or your cowshed, either," said Fred. "We've been hunting up in the woods yonder. Your man saw us."
"We got lost up there after it began to snow, and we had to camp out all night," explained Jack. "We just found that road and were trying to get back to Haven Point and Colby Hall."
"It ain't so! It ain't so!" snarled Elias Lacy. "You come over to my cow paster yesterday afternoon an' shot both o' them cows and then you run away. One o' my men seen you."
"He never did!" burst out Jack. "I tell you we weren't near your place."
"We went out hunting with a number of other cadets, and we can prove it!" added his cousin.
"Huh! where are them other cadets now?" demanded the old farmer.
"We got separated in the woods—they going off for some rabbits in one direction and we going off after some other rabbits in another direction," explained the oldest Rover boy. "I don't know where those other cadets are now. Probably they went back to the school."
"You ain't got no right to hunt on my grounds."
"We were out in the open woods, Mr. Lacy, where we had a perfect right to be."
"Well, we won't talk about that now," snarled the old man. "I'm a-goin' to fix you for shootin' them cows. They was two of the best cows I had, an' they was wuth a lot o' money."