“Well, if you won’t I don’t see how I can make you.”
“You can’t.”
“Humph! What is it you are so anxious to hide? If you shut up this way I shall think you are hiding something, of course. And so will everybody else.”
“Let them think what they please. There is nothing I am ashamed of in it. I will say that much.”
“Um-hum. Then there is something shameful for somebody; eh?”
“Captain Townsend, I have told you all I shall ever tell any one. And,” earnestly, “if you take my advice you will be satisfied and do your best to keep the town satisfied with that much. One of your horses kicked Covell in the head. It was an accident and no one in particular was to blame for it. There! that is the last word I shall say now, or any other time. Good day.”
Foster Townsend’s hat was in his hand, but he did not go. He was obviously perplexed and troubled.
“Griffin,” he said, after a momentary pause, “there was a queer yarn going around town this morning. A mighty queer one. I didn’t take any stock in it, and I wasn’t going to mention it to you because I thought it was too foolish to bother with. But now, since you won’t answer a question, won’t tell a thing, and from the hints you’ve dropped—I—well, I don’t know.”
“Hints! I haven’t dropped any hints.”
“Oh, yes, you have. You dropped one or two, without meaning it, I guess—to Esther the morning when you brought Seymour home. She was worried and told me about them. She couldn’t make out why, if, as you said, you were going to get your horse at the livery stable, you went by that stable and up along the main road and found Seymour and the span there. She says when she asked you that you didn’t answer. It made her believe that you didn’t find him by the main road at all, but somewhere down along this road—the lower road. Well, to be honest with you, I shouldn’t wonder if she was right. I don’t believe that span and two-seater could have stood alongside the main road very long, in plain sight, without somebody seeing them. It was after one when Asa Bloomer walked right along that road beyond the stable and he didn’t see them.”