“I suppose we know who took him,” said Mr. Gaston, uneasily.
“I don’t think you do, Gaston,” said the squire. “It wasn’t Joe.”
“What!” exclaimed the farmer.
Mrs. Gaston had approached, and called out eagerly, “Mr. Bidwell!”
“O Joe! Oh, goody!” screamed Jennie.
“No,” repeated the squire, “it wasn’t your boy. It was a common horse-thief,—a bow-legged, stumpy fellow by the nickname of Callipers.”
“Are you sure about this?” questioned Mr. Gaston. “What evidence have you got?”
“You won’t deceive us?” exclaimed Joe’s mother.
“No, Mrs. Gaston, I wouldn’t,” said the squire, who had now found his tongue,—“not for anything. What I’m telling you is truth, every word of it. Joe didn’t take that horse. He didn’t know any more about the taking of that horse than you did,—not a bit. But we’ve run down the man who did it, from one clew to another, and the deputy sheriff’s got him in a wagon out here in the road in front of the house now. Will you go out and see him? I guess maybe he can tell you something about Joe. He seems inclined to make a clean breast of it. I’d have brought him around here with me, but the sheriff’s got handcuffs on him, and it’s hard to get him out and in the wagon.”