"I've got only one thing to say, Tom," he added. "If you go back on me, and breathe a word of what happened in the pasture, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live."
"Who's going back on you? did I say I was?" demanded Tom rather irritably.
"All right, then; I only wanted to have the thing understood between us, I didn't really think you would be mean enough to tell."
So a satisfactory understanding was established between the two boys, and it looked as if Mark was likely to be the victim of their alliance.
But just when James was beginning to feel secure, he was startled by an apparition just looming in sight on the highway. It was not a formidable figure—that of Deacon Miller—but under the circumstances James turned pale and his heart began to beat.
"Tom," he gasped; "isn't that Deacon Miller coming up the road?"
"It's the deacon sure enough!" answered Tom, looking disconcerted.
"Do you think he's coming here?" queried James nervously.
"Looks like it?" muttered Tom.
"Do you think he can have——heard anything?"