"Your advice ought to be good, squire. You are used to investin' money."
"Yes, I have a good deal to invest," said Bates. "Which way shall you return?" asked the squire carelessly.
"I thought I might take the creek road, squire."
"If it were my case, I would come through the woods. It's half a mile shorter."
"That's so, and I did think of it, but you and my wife talked to me about robbers, till I began to think the creek road would be safer."
Squire Bates laughed in an amused way.
"I rather think your wife and I talked like old women," he said. "It seems rather ridiculous to think of robbers in this neighborhood."
"So it does!" said Adin Dunham eagerly. "I told Sarah so.
"Then you'll come through the woods?"
"Yes."