"I was afraid you would ask me to come," she said gently. "I don't think it would be right or fair for me to accept your hospitality. Wait! I know what you are going to say. But it isn't quite the same, you see. Mother has been very kind and generous about letting me come over to help you with the house,--and I suppose she would not object if I were to come as your guest at dinner,--but I have a feeling in here somewhere that it would hurt her if I came here as your guest. So I sha'n't come. You understand, don't you?" "Yes," he said gravely,--and reluctantly. "I understand, Viola." Earlier in the week he had ridden out to Isaac Stain's. The hunter had no additional news to give him, except that Barry, after spending a day with Martin Hawk, had gone down to Attica by flat-boat and was expected to return to Lafayette on the packet Paul Revere, due on Monday or Tuesday. Lapelle's extended absence from the town was full of meaning. Stain advanced the opinion that he had gone down the river for the purpose of seeing a Williamsport justice of the peace whose record was none too good and who could be depended upon to perform the contemplated marriage ceremony without compunction if his "palm was satisfactorily greased." "If we could only obtain some clear and definite idea as to their manner of carrying out this plan," said Kenneth, "I would be the happiest man on earth. But we will be compelled to work in the dark,--simply waiting for them to act." "Well, Moll Hawk hain't been able to find out just yet when er how they're goin' to do it," said Stain. "All she knows is that two or three men air comin' up from Attica on the Paul Revere and air goin' to get off the boat when it reaches her pa's place. Like as not this scalawag of a justice will be one of 'em, but that's guesswork. That reminds me to ask, did you ever run acrosst a feller in the town you come from named Jasper Suggs?" "Jasper Suggs? I don't recall the name." "Well, she says this feller Suggs that's been stayin' at Martin's cabin fer a week er two claims to have lived there some twenty odd years ago. Guess you must ha' been too small to recollect him. She says he sort of brags about bein' a renegade durin' the war an' fightin' on the side of the Injins up along the Lakes. He's a nasty customer, she says. Claims to be a relation of old Simon Girty's,--nephew er something like that." "Does he claim to have known any of my family down there?" inquired Kenneth, apprehensively. "From what Moll says he must have knowed your pa. Leastwise, he says the name's familiar. He was sayin' only a day or two ago that he'd like to see a picter of your pa. He'd know if it was the same feller he used to know soon as he laid eyes on it." Kenneth pondered a moment and then said: "Do you suppose you could get a letter to Moll Hawk if I were to write it, Stain?"