"You aim to watch him?"
"Why do you think I'm giving him blanks?"
"Why do you bother with him?"
"I'm an orphan myself. I could have used somebody to look after me when I was ten years old."
"For pete's sake, be careful!"
"I'll keep that in mind."
"You know where to find me if you need advice," Bill Ellis promised. "But if you start any half-baked ruckus, you finish it. I've a wife and two kids to think about. Well, maybe I'll be seeing you."
Pocketing the shells and shouldering the gunny sacks, Jeff walked swiftly back up the road. He halted when he came to the big sycamore. It was a monstrous tree that shaded the road and murmured gently as the evening breeze danced through its branches. There was nothing whatever to show that a man had died violently beside it. But a man had died here, and Jeff looked quizzically at the tree. If it could talk, it probably could tell who had killed Johnny Blazer.
He left the tree and hurried along. Trees did not talk and—Jeff was deep in thought until he came to the cabin. There he brushed his frowns away and forced a sparkle back into his eyes. Dan was a ticklish problem, and like all such, he had to be handled delicately. There must not be even one wrong move. Jeff burst into the cabin with a cheerful, "Poke the fire up, Dan! There's pork chops for supper!"