And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store, Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing—a trifle more sanely drunk than he had been some hours previous—bringing up the rear.
"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"
"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."
"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I come here to have a word with you."
"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific.
"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I want to know the rights to it."
"Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he didn't deny it."
"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he can prove it?"
"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"