"You needn't be. He would find fault with you, but that would be all."
Ezekiel Mason was weak, but not weak enough to yield to the persuasions of his prisoner. Besides, he knew that Luke would come down from the attic directly.
In fact he was already close at hand. He brought in his hand the cut fragments of the cord with which the outlaw had originally been bound.
"This tells the story," he said, holding up the rope so that the farmer and his wife could see it. "This rope has been cut. The man has a knife."
John Fox darted a malignant look at him, but said nothing.
"You are smart, John Fox," Luke went on, "smarter than I thought. It must have cost you considerable trouble to cut the rope. Where is your knife?"
John Fox did not reply.
Luke Robbins knelt down and thrust his hand unceremoniously into the outlaw's pocket.
He drew out the knife which had done Fox so much service.
"This will be safer with me than with you," he said.