Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/141

 foul? But greatly to their surprise Joe propounded no such inquiry. The latter knew very well that if some one had not reposed confidence in him, Tom never would have heard of any plot; and Joe was too much of a gentleman to ask him to violate that confidence. He wanted to turn the conversation into another channel, and so he began talking about Mars, who was walking along the path before them.

"That fellow is the only foreigner in the party," said Joe. "He was born and received the rudiments of his education on the bleak shores of Newfoundland."

"Then how did you come to get hold of him?" inquired Tom.

"I was up there two winters ago with my uncle, hunting caribou."

"What sort of an animal is that?" asked Tom. He spoke before he thought, and was provoked at himself for it. He did not want to be constantly asking information of a boy who never came to him for any. As Tom would have expressed it: "He didn't care to make Joe and his friends any more conceited than they were already." Joe, however, was not at