"But, Jack, I'm afraid he's bound to have to go through the whole business again," interposed Steve.
"Do you know I more than half suspected you had got wind of something new in the affair, Steve," Jack told him. "I could see how your eyes glistened as you listened to what Toby here was saying; and once or twice you opened your mouth to interrupt him, but thought better of it. Now tell us what it means, Steve."
"For one thing, that man has been at Fred again," asserted the other, positively.
"Do you know this for a certainty?" Jack asked.
"Why, I saw them talking, I tell you," explained Steve, persistently. "This is how it came about. You see, yesterday, as Toby here couldn't go fishing with me I started off alone, taking my bait pail and rod along, and bent on getting a mess of perch at a favorite old fishin' hole I knew along the shore of the lake about a mile or so from town."
"Meaning that same place you showed me, near where the road comes down close to the shore of the water?" suggested Toby, quickly.
"Right you are, son," continued Steve, nodding his head as he spoke. "Well, I had pretty fair luck for a while, and then the perch quit taking hold, so I sat down to wait till they got hungry again. And while I squatted there on the log that runs out over the water at my favorite hole, I heard the mutter of voices as some people came slowly along the road.
"First I didn't pay much attention to the sounds, believing that just as like as not it was a couple of town boys, and I didn't like the idea of their finding out where I got such heavy strings of fish once in so often. And then as they passed closer to me something familiar in one of the voices made me twist my head around.
"Well, it was Fred Badger, all right, walking along with that same sporty-looking stranger. And say, he isn't such a bad-looking customer after all, Jack, when you get a close look at him, being gray-bearded, and a bit halting in his walk like he might have been injured some time or other. It's more the clothes he wears that give him the sporty appearance, though, if you say he's one of that betting bunch up at Harmony, he must be a bad lot.
"They had their heads together, and seemed to be discussing something at a great rate. I couldn't hear what they said, the more the pity, for it might have given us a line on the whole silly business; but the man seemed trying to convince Fred about something, and the boy was arguing kind of feebly as if ready to give in. Well, something tempted me to give a cough after I'd stood up on the log. Both of 'em looked that way in a hurry. I waved my hand at Fred, and he answered my signal, but while you might have expected that he'd come back to ask what luck I had, and mebbe introduce his friend, he didn't do that same by a jugfull. Fact is he said something to the man, and the two of them hurried along the road."