Mr. Brown turned to Dannie.
“Haven’t you told your grandfather about it yet?” he asked.
“Not yet,” stammered Dannie. “I—I was just going to when you came.”
Gabriel left the chair in which he was sitting next his employer, and went down and seated himself on the porch steps. Abner Pickett took his pipe from his mouth, and, grasping it firmly in the fingers of his right hand, looked questioningly from one member of the group to another.
“Well,” he said at last, “why don’t somebody speak? Are you all struck dumb? What is it about the railroad, Dannie?”
“Why, Gran’pap, they—the surveyors you know—they—they—”
“Well?”
“Whacked their stakes in regardless—” broke in Gabriel, in his intense anxiety to help Dannie out.
Abner Pickett turned on him savagely:—