“Just that—Timothy Bayne. Folks thought he was killed by his hired man, but neither could be found when they come to look for ’em. They were a hard crowd.”
“But old Tim Bayne had neither chick nor child, living all alone.”
“That does not hinder him from having thieving relatives, running around the country breaking into stores and post offices, does it?”
“But Tim Bayne owned all of that quarter of the town when he died, though I can’t say it was very valuable.”
“Just so; and there being no one to claim it when he died or disappeared—I never thought the man was dead—the Cornhills got the whole of it for a mere song. But it hasn’t done the deacon much good. Ill-gotten gains never do,” added the squire, aiming to be philosophical.
“I don’t quite recall any other Bayne in town them days,” declared an old resident, “though my memory doesn’t often go back on me.”
“That may be, but it doesn’t require much to recall the fag-end Bayne that we have with us now,” remarked ’Squire Hardy, who had just seen Rob, who had stopped at the outside of the party. “Say, youngster, wasn’t your father Gid Bayne?”
The question was so unexpected, the situation so ominous to him in its outcome, that Little Hickory had hard work to command his feelings. As it was, he feared a moment later that he had betrayed himself by his looks.
“I have just come, sir, and I do not know what you mean.”
“Calculate you’d know if you wanted to. There is no doubt you belong to the same breed of cats, for there was never but one family by that name. By ——! it is a mighty apt one, too! I don’t see why Stanyan don’t come. If I was sheriff, I’d manage to be on hand once in my life.”