“Do you suppose that if we had been guilty of an attempt to break into your house, we would have gone to sleep in your barn?” demanded Dick.
“That was only a blind. You wanted me to suspicion some innocent persons.”
“But Dick says there were three of the robbers, and you saw only two,” said Mr. Newton. “How do you account for that? Who was the other, and where did he go?”
“I reckon mebbe it was George Edwards, an’ that he took himself safe home. He looks kinder guilty.”
“There, now, what did I tell you, young man?” spoke up Uncle Ruben, shaking his riding whip at his astonished nephew. “Didn’t I say that you had better take up with my offer and go home with me? Didn’t I say that all the folks in the village suspicioned you of knowin’ how all them stores got broke into an’ robbed, an’ that you’d be sartin’ to git yourself into trouble by livin’ up here in the woods like a wild Injun—eh?”
George was so utterly bewildered by this unexpected turn of events that he could not utter a word.
He stood speechless and motionless, growing red and pale by turns, and almost any one would have said he looked guilty. Bob Howard was the first to recover himself.
“Mr. Newton,” said he, earnestly, “we did not see George last night. If he had met us at the road, as he would have done if we had not got lost in the woods, we should not have been obliged to sleep in that barn.”
“Uncle Ruben,” said George, who had managed to get a few of his wits together, “you don’t suspect me of being dishonest; and I know it as well as you do. Your object is to drive me away from this lake, under the impression that if you succeed I shall be forced to work for you for nothing; but you may as well give it up, for I will never do a hand’s turn for you as long as I live.”
“I’ve always heard,” replied Uncle Ruben, running his eye over the cabin and its surroundings, as if he were looking for something—“I’ve always heard that when thieves steal anything they hide it somewheres, most ginerally in the ground. I think it would be a good plan to s’arch the premises.”