"I don't want to believe it of you, Japhe," quavered Tom, as near to tears as the pride of his eighteen years would sanction. "But somebody saw and told, and made it a heap worse than it was." He leaned over the top of the wall and put his face in the crook of his elbow, being nothing better than a hurt child, for all his bigness.
"Well, now; I wouldn't let a little thing like that gravel me, if I was you, Tom-Jeff," said Pettigrass, turned comforter. "Nan's a mighty pretty gal, and you ort to be willin' to stand a little devilin' on her account—more especially as you've—"
Tom put up his arm as if to ward a blow.
"Don't you say it, Japhe, or I'll go mad again," he broke out.
"I ain't sayin' nothin'. But who do you reckon it was told on you? Was there anybody else in the big woods that mornin'?"
"Yes; there were three men testing the pipe-line. We both saw them, and Nan was scared stiff at sight of one of them; that's why I put her up in that hole."
"Who was the man?"
"I don't know. I didn't recognize any of them—they were too far off when I saw them. And afterward, Nan wouldn't tell me."
"Did any of 'em see you and Nan?"
"I thought not. Nan was sitting on the flat rock where you stood and looked into the cave, and when she began to whimper, I flung her over into the leaves and ran with her to the hole."