"Happened!" broke in the shrill voice of his uncle. "Happened!" he snorted again, his wrath rising. "This thing didn't just happen.

Something made those horses run away, and I want to know just what it was. And I'm not going to be satisfied till I find out," the man went on, glaring suspiciously from one to the other of the boys until he finally settled on Teddy.

But Teddy just then was intently studying the beautiful sunset.

Good-natured Jim Dabney tried, right here, to make a diversion.

"The horses must have got frightened at something," he ventured hopefully.

"Yes," said Jack Youmans, following his lead, "I could see that they were awfully scared."

"You don't say so!" retorted Uncle Aaron, with withering sarcasm. "I could guess as much as that myself." And the two boys, having met with the usual fate of peacemakers, fell back, red and wilted.

"Gee, isn't he an old crank?" muttered Jim.

"That's what," a.s.sented Jack. "I'd hate to be in Teddy's shoes just now."

To tell the truth, Teddy would gladly have loaned his shoes to any one on earth at that moment.

"Come here, Teddy," called his uncle sharply, "and look me straight in the eye."

Now, looking Uncle Aaron straight in the eye was far from being Teddy's idea of pleasure. There were many things he would rather do than that.

There had been many occasions before this when he had received the same invitation, and he had never accepted it without reluctance. It was a steely eye that seemed to look one through and through and turn one inside out.

Still, there was no help for it, and Teddy, with the air of an early Christian martyr, was slowly coming to the front, when suddenly they heard a shout of triumph, and, turning, saw Jed Muggs hold up something he had just found on the floor of the coach.

"Here it is!" he cried; "here's the identical thing what done it!" And as he came shambling forward he held up, so that all could see it, the ball that had been only too well aimed when it had hit the gray horse.

Jed was a town character and the b.u.t.t of the village jokes. He had been born and brought up there, and only on one occasion had strayed far beyond its limits. That was when he had gone on an excursion to the nearest large city. His return ticket had only been good for three days, but after his return, bewildered but elated, he had never tired of telling his experiences. Every time he told his story, he added some new variation, chiefly imaginary, until he at last came to believe it himself, and posed as a most extensive traveler.

"Yes, sir-ree," he would wind up to his cronies in the general store, as he reached out to the barrel for another cracker, "they ain't many things in this old world that I ain't seen. They ain't n.o.body kin take me fur a greenhorn, not much they ain't!"

For more years past than most people could remember, he had driven the village stage back and forth between Oldtown and Carlette, the nearest railway station. He and his venerable team were one of the features of the place, and the farmers set their clocks by him as he went plodding past. Everybody knew him, and he knew the past history of every man, woman and child in the place. He was an encyclopedia of the village gossip and tradition for fifty years past. This he kept always on tap, and only a hint was needed to set him droning on endlessly.

Jed's one aversion was the boys of Oldtown. He got on well enough with their elders, who humored and tolerated the old fellow. But he had never married, and, with no boys of his own to keep him young in heart, he had grown crankier and crustier as he grew older. They kept him on edge with their frequent pranks, and it was his firm conviction that they had no equals anywhere as general nuisances.

"I've traveled a lot in my time," he would say, and pause to let this statement sink in; "yes, sir, I've traveled a lot, and I swan to man I never seen nowhere such a bunch of rapscallions as they is in this here town."

Then he would bite off a fresh quid of tobacco and shake his head mournfully, and dwell on the sins of the younger generation.

Now, as he hobbled eagerly up to the waiting group, forgetting for the moment his "roomatics," he was all aglow with animation. His loose jaw was wagging and his small eyes shone like a ferret's.

"Here's what done it," he repeated, in his high, cracked voice, as he handed the ball to his partner in the accident. "I knew them horses of mine wouldn't run away for nuthin'."

"n.o.body ever saw them run before," Jack Youmans could not help saying.

"You shet up!" cried Jed angrily. "They was too well trained."

Aaron Rushton took the ball and examined it carefully.

"I found it in the corner of the coach under the seat," volunteered Jed.

"It wasn't in there when we started. I kin stake my life on that."

"This explains the blow I got on the back of the neck," commented Teddy's uncle. "The ball must have hit one of the horses first, and then glanced off into the coach. Were you boys playing ball, when we went past?" he asked, turning to Fred.

"Yes, we were," answered Fred. "That is, we weren't playing a regular game. We'd got through with that and were having a little practice, batting flies."

"Why weren't you more careful then?" asked his uncle sharply. "Don't you see that you came within an ace of killing one or both of us? Who was doing the batting?"

Jim and Jack loyally looked as though they were trying their hardest to remember, but could not feel quite sure.

"Yes," broke in old Jed, "who was doin' it? That's what I want to know.

'Cos all I got to say is that it'll cost somebody's father a consid'able to make good the damages to the coach and the hosses. The pole is snapped and the sorrel is actin' kind o' droopy."

A smothered laugh ran around the group of boys, whose number had by this time been considerably increased. No one in Oldtown had ever known either sorrel or gray to be anything else than "droopy."

Jed transfixed the boys with a stony stare. He had, at least, the courage of his convictions.

"Yes, sir-ree," he went on, "them hosses is vallyble, and I don't kalkilate to be done out of my rights by n.o.body, just becos some fool boy didn't have sense enough to keep from scarin' 'em. Somebody's father has got to pay, and pay good, or I'll have the law on 'em, by ginger!

Come along now. Who done it?"

"Jed is right, as far as that goes," said Mr. Aaron Rushton. "Of course, it was an accident, but it was a mighty careless one and somebody will have to make good the damage. Now, I'm going to ask you boys, one by one----"

Teddy stepped forward. His heart was in his boots. The game was up and he would have to face the consequences. He knew that none of the other boys would tell on him, and he would be safe enough in denying it, when the question came to him. But the thought of doing this never even occurred to him. The Rushton boys had been brought up to tell the truth.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Aaron," he said, "but I'm the one that hit the ball."

CHAPTER IV

FACING THE MUSIC

There was a stir of antic.i.p.ation among the boys, and they crowded closer, as Teddy faced his angry relative.

"Jiminy, but he's going to catch it!" whispered Jim.

"You bet he will. I wouldn't like to be him," agreed Jack, more fervently than grammatically.

His uncle looked at Teddy sourly.

"I'm not a bit surprised," he growled. "From the minute I saw you on the bank I felt sure you were mixed up in this some way or other. You'd feel nice now, if you'd killed your uncle, wouldn't you?"

Poor Teddy, who did not look the least like a murderer and had never longed to taste the delights of killing, stammered a feeble negative.

"Why did you do it?" went on his merciless cross-examiner. "Didn't you see the stage coming? Why didn't you bat the other way?"

The culprit was silent.