“‘Almost’ don’t go--not in swearin’ folks are guilty.” “I know that. But we’ve had a lot of evidence----” “What kind o’ evidence?” Sam frowned. “Why--why, it has been circumstantial evidence, but there has been a lot of it. And Orkney has had a chronic grouch all along. And he has had it in for all my crowd. And, finally, he ran away. That’s the same as confessing, isn’t it?” “Confessin’ what?” “Oh, everything,” said Sam vaguely. Lon took a moment for thought. “Sam, I can’t help thinkin’ there’s a mistake somewhere. Now, you mean to be square and fair, and so do your chums, but you haven’t liked this Orkney. I dunno’s there’s any reason why you should like him, but that ain’t the question. I plumb despise a rattlesnake, but I’ve got no call to insist he’s stealin’ my fire-wood. Follow the argyment, do you?” “Yes; but----” “Hold on! Wa’n’t there nothin’ nowhere along the line to make you doubt if you were right?” “Nothing,” Sam insisted; then recalled the Shark’s contention, and made amendment. “There was nothing, that is, except that Willy Reynolds figured it out that Orkney couldn’t have thrown a stone that smashed a window in our club-house. And the Shark--Willy, I mean--is a crank on mathematics. And we found a cap of Orkney’s----” “One he’d been wearin’ that evenin’?” “Well, nobody saw him wearing it--nobody saw him, for that matter; for he ducked and ran. And though a face showed outside of the window, the fellow who noticed it didn’t recognize it. But the cap belonged to Orkney.” Lon did not appear to be deeply impressed. “Thing like that depends on a lot of other things,” said he. “But Orkney didn’t try to deny anything.” “Oh, put it up to him, good and straight, did you?” “Why--why, in a way.” “Jesso! But you didn’t say, ‘Now, Orkney, what did you do this thing, and that thing, and the other thing for?’” “Well, I hinted at things I was going to thrash him for, and----” Lon laughed. “Ho-ho! Now we’re gettin’ down to cases. You said, ‘I’m goin’ to lick you,’ and he said, ‘Come on and try it.’ Sam, it’s been a good while since I was a boy, but I guess that’s jest about what I’d ’a’ said to a feller of my own size that promised me a hidin’. And I wouldn’t ’a’ asked a bill o’ particulars.” Sam took a turn the length of the barn floor and back. Lon certainly was presenting a new aspect of the case, a disturbing aspect, unsettling, destructive of comfortable confidence. “Look here, Lon! What makes you take sides against me?” the boy asked querulously. “I don’t,” was the curt reply. “But----” “Wal, I’ll explain. First place, such didoes as somebody has been cuttin’ up round here don’t quite fit in with what a feller like this Orkney would be likely to do. Maybe he’s a surly customer, but, after all, he’s had good bringin’ up. Second place, bein’ away from town, he couldn’t have chopped up the harness last night. Third place, I’m gettin’ kind of a hunch that I may be able to dig up a clue or two.”