"What's that?" he demanded. "Surely they haven't blown in again?"
Caleb nodded assent.
"I reckon so. Colonel Duxbury allowed to me this mornin' that he was about out o' the woods—in spite of you, he said; as if you'd been the one that was doin' him up."
"But he can't be!" exclaimed Tom, so earnestly and definitely that the mask fell away and the father was no longer deceived.
"I'm only tellin' you what he allowed to me, son. I reckoned he was about all in, quite a spell ago; but you can't tell nothing by what you see—when it's Colonel Duxbury. He got two car-loads o' new men to-day, the Lord on'y knows where from; and he's shippin' Pocahontas coke, and gettin' it here, too."
Tom sat glooming over it for a time, shrouding himself in tobacco smoke. Then he said:
"You feazed me a little at first; but I think I know now what has happened."
Caleb took time to let the remark sink in. It carried inferences.
"Buddy, I been suspectin' for a good while back that you know more about this sudden smash-up than you've let on. Do you?"
"I know all about it," was the quiet rejoinder.