“But you said—” In his perplexity the lawyer could only stare.
“I reckon thar are lots of things in this life that kin keep fellows out of offices besides the men runnin' agin 'em,” Baker said, significantly.
The eyes of the two men met in a long, steady stare; each was trying to read the other. But Garner was too shrewd a lawyer to be pumped even by a trusted friend, and he simply leaned back and took up his pen. “Oh yes, of course,” he observed, “a good many slips betwixt the cup and the lip.”
Silence fell between the two men. Baker broke it suddenly and with his customary frankness. “Look here, Bill Garner,” he said. “That young feller's yore partner an' friend, but I've got his interests at heart myself, an' it don't do no harm sometimes fer two men to talk over what concerns a friend to both. I come in town to talk to somebody, an' it looks like you are the man.”
“Oh, that's it,” Garner said. “Well, out with it, Baker.”
Pole thrust his right hand into his pocket and took out a splinter of soft pine and his knife. Then, with the toe of his heavy shoe, he drew a wooden, sawdust-filled cuspidor towards him and over it he prepared to whittle.
“I want to talk to you about Carson,” he said. “It ain't none o' my business, Bill, but I believe he's in great big trouble.”
“You do, eh?” and Garner seemed to throw caution to the winds as he leaned forward, his great, facile mouth open. “Well, Pole?”
“Gossip—talk under cover from one mouth to another,” the mountaineer drawled out, “is the most dangerous thing, next to a bucket o' powder in a cook-stove that you are goin' to bake in, of anything I know of. Gossip has got hold of Dwight, Bill, an' it's tangled itself all about him. Ef some'n' ain't done to choke it off it will git him down as shore as a blacksnake kin swallow a toad after he's kivered it with slime.”
“You mean—” But Garner seemed to think better of his inclination towards subterfuge and broke off.