Lon wagged his head sagaciously. “Jesso, Sam, jesso! Them’s the undoubted sentiments o’ Peter Groche, Esq. Once--twice, comin’ along, I tried to talk with him, but all I could make out was that he’d got it in for you for keeps. And as for the why of it--wal, I dunno’s you’re ready to have that talked over in open meetin’.” And Lon winked meaningly. “Oh!” Because Sam understood, his tone was startled. “Oh! That?” “Exactly! The beginnin’ o’ the trouble,” said Lon, and winked again. “The be--the beginning----” Sam repeated doubtfully. Perhaps Lon felt himself justified in dwelling on his own shrewdness. “Fact is, Sam,” said he, “you’re kind o’ bothered, because you’re still half calculatin’ on what a reasonable bein’ would ’a’ done. But Groche, as I’ve told you, ain’t reasonable--not our kind o’ reasonable. Jest bear that in mind. Allow that he got it into his crooked brain that he hated you--hatin’s his long suit, I reckon. Now, you’re thinkin’--bein’ what you are, you can’t help thinkin’ it--that when nothin’ much happened to Peter, and they let him go, he ought to have realized he’d been mistaken, somehow, in draggin’ you in. But that ain’t Peter Groche’s method. He’d got you in his bad books, and there you stayed. It’s all plain as print to me, son. It’s one idee at a time for Peter, and he ain’t the sort o’ feller to go seekin’ further light, or askin’ the questions a decent man would ask. What if he was let out? He’s been put in, and that was all he thought about. So he ’tended to all the sculduggery about our place--which was bad enough. But he hated a mite too hard, and went a mile too far, when he played firebug; and now we’ve got him for something that’ll spell state’s prison for him. And that’s why I was so dead sot on bringin’ him in alive.” “I see,” said Sam gravely. Now, to this conversation there had been a group of eager, if puzzled, listeners. Save for Groche’s reference to Major Bates as a “bloodhound,” and the discussion of his brief confinement, no clue to the mystery had been given to the boys; and these matters carried a suggestion so unexpected and so surprising that none of them readily grasped it. When Sam said, “I see,” two or three of the others moved uneasily. “Jiminy! I don’t!” cried Poke explosively. “I don’t want to seem prying or inquisitive, but you’ve got me guessing. It’s worse than Greek; for that I can dig out, if I have to. But there’s no vocabulary to help here.” Sam’s glance went from one to another of his friends. He read in the face of each something very like the thought Poke had put into words. He drew a long breath. “Fellows! I’ll tell you. I meant to keep it a secret, but I guess you’re entitled to know. What Lon referred to as the beginning of the trouble was--well, it was the--er--er--the accident to Major Bates. I shot at what I thought was a deer in Marlow woods, and I hit the Major!” “Whew!” “You did that, Sam!” “Shot the Major!”