"Sure it was me," returned the old lady tartly. "Who had a better right to shoot 'im, I'd like to know? What's the joke, young man?"
"You shot 'im?" muttered Homer.
"Ain't I jes' told ye so? Where's yer manners?"
"Does Sheriff Hart know?"
"That he does, an' Hammond, too! The hull world knows it, I reckon."
Homer turned and left the kitchen. He went to the stable and harnessed his mare in the dark.
Mark Ducat entered the kitchen within a few minutes of Homer's departure. He had returned from Kettle Pond only that morning, and was full of enthusiasm for his and Jim's venture.
Jim stopped in the middle of recounting his adventures and gripped Mark's hand in both of his and expressed intense pleasure at the sight of his partner by word and look.
"But I won't be able to make the trip north for a week or two because of this game leg," he explained cheerfully. "I've been having a wild old time the last few days. But I've learned a lot about women, at any rate."
"What's that got to do with our trap line?"