“See to it that you fellows do your duty with the gamey bass!” he called out as the other four piled into the big car, ready to start forth.
“I heard you call that young chap, who was filling the gas tank, Peleg; is he one of the workmen on the farm, Ralph?” Rob asked after they had gotten fairly started, for he chanced to be sitting alongside the driver at the time, the other boys occupying the rear seat.
He saw that Ralph had a slight frown on his face, as though something unpleasant had come into his mind just then, possibly induced by mention of the name.
“Yes, his name is Peleg Pinder,” he replied in jerky sentences. “His father was a sort of hard case in Wyoming, and the family seemed to be always in a peck of trouble. Some folks said the children’d all be worthless, just like their good-for-nothing dad. Then there was a fire, and Peleg’s father was burned trying to save an old crippled woman. Somehow people thought better of him after he died. The children scattered. One girl is working for a farmer seven miles away. My father took Peleg in, and gave him a home. Been with us six months or so now.”
“How about his work—he seems lively enough, and good-natured. In fact,” continued Rob, “I rather like the sparkle in his eyes.”
“Yes, he fooled me right along, too,” said Ralph, with a trace of a sneer in his tone. “He does his work so you couldn’t really find any fault; but then it’s hard to shake off a bad name, and the Pinders always were shiftless and deceitful, Wyoming folks believe.”
Rob was interested at once, and for a reason. He hated to see any one “picked on” simply because “people” chose to believe no good could come out of a family that had a shirker for a father. Why, the very fact that poor Pinder had died while performing an act of heroism ought to be enough to prove that such a wholesale condemnation was utterly wrong.
“You’ve got some sort of reason for saying that, I imagine, Ralph?” he continued, bent on discovering the truth now that he was at it.
“Well, I have, though I didn’t mean to mention it to any of you, because for one thing I wanted you to have a jolly time of it here, and without bothering about any of my troubles. Then, again, I hate to speak ill of anybody, even Peleg Pinder.”
“What has he been doing, then, to make you suspect him?” demanded Rob.