"I got the most of this while listening at the window when Bob was talking to Leon and Ben. What more they had to say I don't know, for they walked away, so that I couldn't hear them; but by putting this and that together I got at the true story of the matter. You can tell me the rest I want to know. Are you willing to do it? I may be able to bring some good out of it, as I said before."
Thus urged, Gus determined that the best thing he could do would be to tell the truth. He began at the beginning and told everything Barlow had said, touching lightly upon what he had said himself, however, and when he had finished he settled back in his chair as if he was glad to have the load off his mind. His father did not interrupt him until he got through, and then he said:
"I don't see why you did not tell me this at the start. As I said a little while back, you have got yourself in a pretty scrape. Suppose something should happen to Bob, and he should be kidnapped and sent to sea against his will; where would you be?"
"By George! I never thought of that," said Gus, growing frightened again.
"Barlow knows that I do not approve of such doings as that," continued Mr. Layton, "and after Bob had been gone for a month or two, he would come to me for money."
"For what?" asked Gus. "You wouldn't hire him to send Bob off to sea."
"That may all be. I might never have dreamed that he had such a thing in mind; but don't you know that he would come to me for money to make him keep his mouth shut?"
"That's something new to me," said Gus, fairly trembling with excitement and fear. "He could do it as easy as falling off a log, couldn't he? But I don't suppose that Barlow knows enough to do that."
"Don't worry about it. He would come for money, and if I refused to give it to him, how long would it be before everybody in town would hear of it?"
"He would be as deep in the mud as you are," suggested Gus. "If you went to jail he would have to go, too."