"So you're going back on me, are you?" exclaimed Tom.
"Not at all. We are simply telling you the truth."
"Perhaps Joe doesn't know that Tom put it into Matt's head to follow him and his friends to No-Man's Pond," suggested Loren. "I haven't heard a word said about it."
"Neither have I; but that's no proof that Joe doesn't know all about it," answered Ralph.
"Who do you think told him?" asked Tom. "It couldn't have been Matt Coyle, for I told him particularly not to mention my name in Joe's hearing, or drop a hint that would lead him to suspect that Matt had seen me in the Indian Lake country."
"The squatter didn't care that for your injunctions of secrecy," said Ralph, snapping his fingers in the air. "What he said to you during those interviews you held with him ought to convince you that he would just as soon get you into trouble as anybody else. Being a social outcast, Matt believes in making war upon every one who is higher up in the world than he is."
"Well," said Tom, with a sigh of resignation, "if Joe knows as much as you think he does, my chances of getting out of the scrapes I've got into are few and far between. He'll tell everything, and be glad of the chance. I wish from the bottom of my heart that we had never seen or heard of Mount Airy."
"Joe Wayring will tell nothing unless it is forced out of him," said Ralph stoutly; and for the first time in his life Tom did not scowl and double up his fists as he had been in the habit of doing whenever either of his cousins said anything in praise of the boy he hated without a cause. If Joe was as honorable as Ralph seem to think he was, Tom thought he saw a chance to escape punishment for his wrong-doing. "He'll not commit perjury nor even stretch the truth to screen you," continued Ralph, as if he read the thoughts that were passing in Tom's mind. "But he'll not volunteer any evidence; I am sure of that."
If Ralph had been one of Joe Wayring's most intimate friends he could not have read him better. The latter was very much afraid that he would be compelled to say something that would criminate Tom, but to his surprise and relief the members of the grand jury did not seem to know that there was such a fellow in the world as Tom Bigden, for they never once mentioned his name. If the old woman and her boys had tried to throw the blame for their misdeeds upon his shoulders, they hadn't made anything by it. All the jury cared for was to find out just how much Joe and his friends knew about the six thousand dollars that had been stolen from the Irvington Bank; and as the boys knew but little about it, it did not take them long to give their evidence. Finally one of the jurymen said: