"Well, he shan't get away," said Frick decidedly, nipping up the end of the jacket nearest to him.
"How did you hurt your arm?" asked Jasper. Despite all his anxiety about Joel, and an awful feeling that in some way an accident had occurred that had enveloped them both, he looked into he face beneath him with real concern.
"None of your business," the boy was going to say, but instead he turned away his face, then brought it back, and defiance was written all over it. "He sassed me, that old fellow in the carriage. Did you s'pose I'd tell him after that?"
"He's dreadfully anxious," said Jasper, ignoring everything else. "You see, Joel's been gone in all this storm, and we don't know anything in the world where he is."
"I do," said the boy.
"Then, if you do"—Jasper stopped suddenly and brought his keen dark eyes to bear on the rough, defiant face—"I just hope you will tell me. And I know you will," he added, after a pause in which Frick fastened his gaze on them both wildly, luckily without discovering any use for his tongue.
The boy swallowed hard, dropped his eyes for a moment, then looked up.
"He was out on the pond."
"Out on the pond!" echoed Frick, and his hand nipping the jacket-end fell nerveless to his side.
"No one told you to speak," said the boy sharply, turning on him, "so you shut up."