Bob now went out and down to the brookside, where he cut up and stripped three or four leatherwood bushes, and tied the tough, fibrous bark into one strong rope. With this he girded the bear to the horse's back, meantime resisting all of old Lazar's inquiries about the reason for his coming. At length he walked off in the dusk, unsteadily leaning against the horse on which the bear-meat was tied, and was soon out of sight. "Bob won't tell me," said the old man plaintively, as he came into the house. "He won't, won't he?" demanded S'manthy, with exultation in her voice. "You don' know how. Takes me to git at a sekert." "Did he tell _you_, S'manthy?" Uncle Lazar looked a little crest-fallen. "In _course_ he did. Think I couldn' make him tell? W'y, I kin thes twis' Big Bob 'roun' my little finger." "Well, what on yerth did he come over yer fer, S'manthy?" "I promised not to tell you." "To be shore you did. But you're a-goin' to." "Yes; but you'll let it out, un then what'll Bob say to me?" "What'll Jake say to you fer lettin' yer mar' go off, when one uv his boys had the promise? Un what 'll the folks say when they find out you knowed, un let 'em be fooled by Big Bob? You 've got to tell, S'manthy, ur else have all the Holler down on yeh. Besides, you could n' keep that sekert tell bed-time, noways, un you know you couldn'. 'T ain't in you to keep it, un you might thes ez well out weth it now ez arter awhile." "Aw, well, Daddy, Bob didn' say much, on'y ut Jake wouldn' fine the feller that done the shootin' when he got to Moscow." "Tuh law!" exclaimed the old man, waiting with open eyes for more. "He wuz tuck off, afore the eenques' wuz over, to Perrysburg, un Bob come over to see 't Jake didn' git no wind uv it. That 's all they is _to_ it. Un you need n' go un tell it, h-yer _an'_ yan, nuther." S'manthy knew well that this caution was of no avail. But by tacking the proviso to the information, she washed her hands of responsibility, and convinced herself that she had not betrayed a secret. It was an offering that she felt bound to make to her own complacency. Uncle Lazar, for his part, made no bones. He only tarried long enough to set his pipe to smoking. Bob McCord had stopped in the growing darkness under the shade of a box elder, a little beyond the forks of the road. He presently had the satisfaction of seeing the head of the old man as he trotted away through the patch of stunted corn toward a little grocery, which was located where the big road crossed Broad Run Hollow, and which was the common center of resort and intelligence for the neighborhood. XIV IN PRISON