N his way to Blackburn's store the next morning to inquire about the prisoner, Carson met Garner coming out of the barber-shop, where he had just been shaved.
“Any news?” Carson asked, in a guarded voice, though they were really out of earshot of any one.
“No actual news,” Garner replied, stroking his thickly powdered chin; “but I don't like the lay of the land.”
“What's up now?” Dwight asked.
“I don't know that there is anything wrong yet; but, my boy, discovery—discovery grim and threatening is in the very air about us.”
“What makes you think so, Garner?” They paused on the street crossing leading over to Blackbum's store.
“Oh, it's all due to old Linda and Lewis,” Garner said, in a tone of conviction. “You know I was dead against letting them know Pete was alive.”
“You think we made a mistake in that, then?” Carson said. “Well, the pressure was simply too strong, and I had to give way under it. But why do you think it was a bad move?”
“From the way it's turning out,” said Garner. “While Buck Black was shaving me just now he remarked that his wife had seen Uncle Lewis and Linda and that she thought they were acting very peculiarly. I asked him in as off-hand and careless a manner as I could what he meant, and he said that his wife didn't think they acted exactly as if they had just lost their only child. Buck said it looked like they were only pretending to be brokenhearted. I thought the best way to discourage him was to be silent, and so I closed my eyes and he went on with his work. Presently, however, he said bluntly, 'Look here, Colonel Garner'—Buck always calls me colonel—'where do you think they put that boy?' He had me there, you know, and I felt ashamed of myself. The idea of as good a lawyer as there is in this end of the State actually wiggling under the eye and tongue of a coon as black as the ace of spades! Finally I told him that, as well as I could gather, the Hillbend faction had put Pete out of the way, and were keeping it a secret to intimidate the negroes through their natural superstition. And what do you reckon Buck said. Huh, he'd make a good detective! He said he'd had his eye on the most rampant of the Hillbend men and that they didn't look like they'd lynched anything as big as a mouse. In fact, he thought they were on the lookout for a good opportunity in that line.”