Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/29

 surprised, though inwardly he quaked with fear. "I never told Matt to follow Joe Wayring to No-Man's Pond. I never saw him while I was in the woods,—did I, boys?" he added, appealing to his cousins.

"I know a story worth half a dozen of that," said the clerk, before either Ralph or Loren could collect their wits for a reply. "Some of the sportsmen who were stopping at one of the Indian Lake hotels saw you wait for him at a certain place for more than an hour; and when at last Matt arrived, you held quite a lengthy consultation with him."

Tom was so amazed that he could not utter a word. Prime seemed to have the story pretty straight—so straight, in fact, that Loren did not think it best for him to deny it; so he hastened to say:

"If all these ridiculous things which you say you have heard are true, how does it happen that they did not come before the Grand Jury?"

"There were two good reasons for it," answered Prime. "In the first place, there was no one to appear against Tom; and in the