"You know where he is, don't you?" Blodgett asked.
"He gone away."
"Where?" Blodgett stamped his spurred boot.
"I doan' know."
"When did he go?"
"Maybe—yesterday."
"When's he coming back?"
"I doan' think he coomin' back." The Swede deliberately put a kettle on the stove and whistled indifferently.
Blodgett was evidently torn between a desire to maintain his dignity and authority as sheriff and a rather healthy reluctance to have any trouble with the great, hulking Swede.
"It's going to be hard for you if you're lying—"