"Oh, Lindsay, it's only a joke!"
Caroline ran towards him, stopping in horror at the ugly winking eyes of the revolver.
"Mr. Barker only meant—tell Lin about it!" she entreated, sick with foreboding at the dogged man before her, the scornful flushed boy at her side.
"I guess you better tell him, Missy," said the man in a low empty voice.
"Go home, Caroline; go straight home this moment."
Caroline had never heard her cousin speak in that tone, and it was partly in tears, partly in wrath that she answered,
"I will not go straight home, Lindsay Holt, and you needn't talk to me that way, either! Uncle Joe himself asked Mr. Barker—"
She began glibly enough, but even to her simple consciousness the story wavered and rang false, with this stricken, passive man before her. Her voice faltered, she choked.... Had Uncle Joe really asked this man to get the emeralds? Was it possible that—Lindsay laughed disagreeably.
"If you've quite finished, Caroline, will you go home?" he demanded, his eyes still on the revolver.
She gulped painfully; her faith tottered on the last brink.