"Oh," he said, laughing, taking off his hat and looking at the hole in it quizzically. "Somebody has told you. Oh, it was nothing. Some one was hunting and I happened in the way—that's all."
"It was Appah," she said with complete conviction.
"What if it was?" he said, unimpressed. "He knows I know."
"He's a bad man."
"Well, he isn't my idea of a good man exactly; still—there are worse men than Appah."
"Yes," she echoed with conviction; "the agent, and he doesn't trust you."
"No?" he said, genuinely surprised. "What makes you think so?"
"Last night I was sitting crouched behind an empty oil barrel below the trader's window. I was very discouraged, for I had not been able to sell any of my work, and I was trying to think of some other way, or some other work, and before I knew it or realized that I was listening I heard their voices, the trader and the agent. I couldn't hear it all, but I heard enough. It was how the trader could stand at the store window, pretend to be cleaning a gun, and kill some one outside."
"And you think they had me in mind?"
"I didn't hear your name, only—don't go to this meeting this afternoon."