“Let me inform you, my friend, that you make me plenty tired. I don’t know what you’re driving at, but I do know that your insinuations that I am lying are insulting. There’s no reason why I should lie.”

“Mebbe not. Did you go over to Coleman’s Pond? That’s a right long distance; ’bout five miles or a little more.”

“No, we didn’t go over there.”

“Why not?”

“Because after we reached Lander’s camp, where we stopped a while, this storm began, and we decided it would be right foolish to attempt any fishing through the ice to-day.”

“H’m!” grunted the inquisitor skeptically. “Did the Lander boy have a gun with him?”

“No, sir.”

“How’d you happen to stop at his camp?”

“We went there for fishing tackle.”

“And built a fire?”