“Well, I shall do as I please about answering them.”
“Of course; that’s your privilege. But you’ll not do as you please about answering them, when you find yourself hauled up before Judge Baker. Come back here, Benson.”
But Benson paid no attention to him. He did not think it would be quite safe to go back, for he knew too well what was coming. He led his horse around the corner of the cabin, and there is every reason to believe that he intended to mount him and ride away; but his purpose was defeated by Dick Langdon and George, who sprang around the opposite end of the cabin and ran along the front of it, just in time to seize the bridle of Benson’s horse as the young fellow was about to swing himself into the saddle.
“Look here, Benson! You’re only making a bad matter worse,” warned Dick.
“Let me alone!” protested Benson, whose eyes filled with tears as fast as he could wipe them away. “I don’t know anything about Mr. Stebbins’ money.”
“Yes, you do,” said Dick, firmly. “Bob Howard and I were there, and we drove you away just as you were about to go into the house through the wood-shed window. I am sorry for you; but if you think that Bob and I are going to stand still and let somebody accuse us of a crime of which you are guilty, you will find that you are mistaken.”
When Dick took him by the arm and attempted to lead him behind the cabin, Benson showed a disposition to resist him, and it is probable that he would have done so if the sheriff had not put in an appearance.
The latter had been looking for something strange and unexpected to come of this morning’s work, but he had little dreamed that it would be the means of putting him on the track of the burglars for whom he had been so long watching.
He knew now, as well as he knew it ten minutes later, that Benson and his two friends had made an effort to steal Mr. Stebbins’ money—that they were responsible for at least one of the burglaries that had been committed in the village—and he was astounded by the discovery; but his face did not show it.
The culprits were the sons of the wealthiest and most prominent men in the county, and, although the officer did not approve of their idle, shiftless ways, and watched their conduct with some concern, as many other good men in the village did, they were the last ones he would have suspected of any crime. He wondered what it was that had led them to it, and the next Monday he found out.