“But I assure you there is not the slightest possibility of any boy here having taken your chickens, sir,” continued the scout master.
“We’ve been on the move all day long,” added Tom, “and only arrived here half an hour back. Last night we were several miles away in camp.”
“But—you got chickens, and I was robbed last night,” faltered the farmer, as though that fact impressed him as evidence that no argument could keep down.
“If we could prove to you,” continued Mr. Witherspoon, “that we came by these four fowls honestly, I hope you will be frank enough to apologize to my boys for unjustly suspecting them of being hen thieves?”
“Go on then and do it, mister; but I warn you I’m sot in my ways, and hard to convince. It’s got to be a mighty likely yarn that’ll fotch me over.”
“You’ve lived around here some time, I take it?” asked Mr. Witherspoon.
“Man and boy forty-seven years,” came the reply.
“Then you must know Ezra Brush, for he was born in the farm house he occupies to this day?” suggested the scout master.
“I know Ezra like a book. Him and me have always been good friends, except for that boundary dispute which took us to court; but I reckon Ezra don’t hold no grudge agin me ’cause I won out.
“We had Mr. Brush sitting beside our campfire for two hours last night, while I told him all about the things Boy Scouts are taught. He means to have his three boys join the troop at the next meeting; for he knows now that if his little Jim and some of his companions had been scouts, the boy’s life in all probability would have been saved last summer.”