Sam hesitated. “Why--why, I don’t know, Lon. I’ve had a lot of jolts to-day, and I’ve got to do some thinking before I can be sure of anybody.... Or of anything!” he added, after an instant’s pause. CHAPTER XIX OF DUELS AND CONSCIENCE The club received such report as Sam felt free to make of his investigation with interest rather than with regret for its share in the misfortunes of Tom Orkney. If Sam had told the whole story, including the affair in Marlow woods and Lon’s suspicions of Peter Groche, the crowd, doubtless, would have buzzed with excitement, and, incidentally, felt some sympathy for Orkney; but, given merely new light on the matter of the cap and a revised version of the incident at the pond, the boys, as a rule, fell back upon the declaration that Tom was a “grouch,” anyway, and declined to take to themselves any especial culpability. Somebody had committed the depredations at the Parker place; somebody had smashed the club-house window. Maybe Orkney hadn’t done these things, but wasn’t he a chronic sorehead? Of course, it was hard luck for him to be deemed Little Perrine’s persecutor instead of protector, but the misunderstanding was general and not the particular error of the Safety First Club. Even the Shark, who might have spoken from the text of “I told you so,” let the opportunity pass. His calculations of the flight of the boulder had started him upon an agreeable inquiry into the subject of projectiles, and, as Poke declared, he was as far in the clouds as if he had been sent there by one of the big mortars about which he was reading. In the club’s opinion that there was nothing to be done, Sam was in a way to coincide, though he would have phrased it that nothing could be done at present. Yet something should be done. This was clear in his mind, though he seemed to be unable to hit upon a practical suggestion. No news came of the missing Orkney. Lon Gates, playing detective at every opportunity, confessed that he found nothing either to shake or to confirm his theory of the guilt of Peter Groche. The man, after hanging about town as usual, had dropped out of sight, leaving no word of the destination for which he was bound.