“I haven’t anything whatever to confess, Mr. Frances,” said Rodney boldly. “Hearing that Lander had been brought here, I knew well enough what you were trying to do with him, and so——”
“And so he come running, for fear Lander would peach,” interrupted Berlin Barker.
“I didn’t have nothing to tell, and if I had I wouldn’t ’a’ told it,” said Bunk.
“You can see the disposition of the boy, Mr. Frances,” said Berlin’s father. “He brazenly acknowledges that he wouldn’t tell under any circumstances.”
“But,” put in Rod at once, “he states the truth when he says he has nothing to tell. Where are Springer and Piper? I’d like to ask them if they saw Berlin Barker find my silk handkerchief, as he claimed he did, somewhere back of Turkey Hill.”
“They have already made such a statement in my presence,” announced the lawyer. “The evidence is against you, young man, and the easiest way out of your trouble is to own up and settle for that valuable dog which you maliciously slaughtered.”
“I object to your language, sir. I know nothing whatever about the shooting of Barker’s dog.”
“Will you explain how your handkerchief came to be found where it was?”
“I can’t explain that—at present,” confessed Rod. “All I have to say is that somebody must have stolen it from me and lost it there.”
Berlin sneered, and his father, pulling a grieved and indignant countenance, said: