"I know he is," affirmed the Cap'n. "Every time he sticks that old tin badge on the outside of his coat he's on the war-path. Whip up, Hiram!"
From afar they spied the tall figure of Dependence Crymble passing wraithlike to and fro across the yard.
"Thirty days per sashay!" grunted Hiram. "That's the way they figger it."
Batson Reeves would have scrambled down from the top of the woodpile when he saw Cap'n Sproul halt Crymble in his weary labor and draw him to one side. But Hiram suggested to Mr. Reeves that he better stay up, and emphasized the suggestion by clutching a stick of stove-wood in each hand.
"Crymble," huskily whispered the Cap'n, "I put ye here out of a good meanin'—meanin' to keep ye out of trouble. But I'm afraid I've got ye into it."
"I told ye what she was and all about it," complained Mr. Crymble, bitterly.
"It ain't 'she,' it's—it's—" The Cap'n saw the bobbing head of Nute's Dobbin heaving into sight around distant alders. "All is, you needn't stay where I put ye."
Mr. Crymble promptly dropped the three sticks of wood that he was carrying.
"But I don't want you to get too far off till I think this thing over a little," resumed the Cap'n. "There ain't no time now. You ought to know this old farm of your'n pretty well. You just go find a hole and crawl into it for a while."
"I'll do it," declared Mr. Crymble, with alacrity. "I knew you'd find her out. Now that you're with me, I'm with you. I'll hide. You fix 'em. 'Tend to her first." He grabbed the Cap'n by the arm. "There's a secret about that barnyard that no one knows but me. Blind his eyes!"