"Oh, Mr. Jasper," she cried, "isn't it awful! Have you heard the news?"
"What news?" Jasper asked in surprise, as he took a chair by David's side. "I haven't heard anything of special importance."
"It's about Mr. Sinclair, that's who it is. Just think, he wants to take all of our logs!"
"Yes, that's what he's going to do. Mother got a letter from him and she has just read it to us. He says there is a mistake about the line between his place and ours, and that all those fine logs belong to him. He says he had a new line run last week and that the old line is wrong. He warns mother not to touch or sell a log there, for if she does he will sue her."
Betty was excited, and her words rushed forth like a torrent. For a few minutes Jasper could hardly believe that he had heard aright.
"Do you mean to tell me," and he turned to Mrs. Bean, "that what your daughter says is true? Surely there must be some serious mistake."
"I'm afraid not," was the reply. "There is the letter, which you can read for yourself."
It took Jasper but a few seconds to scan the brief note, and when he was through he sat staring at it as if he had not seen aright. Was it possible, he asked himself, that Peter Sinclair was stooping to such a contemptible piece of business? And to do it to a widow at that added to his meanness. What justification did he have for doing such a thing? he wondered.
"Was there ever any dispute about the line?" Jasper asked.
"None at all," Mrs. Bean replied. "A mistake was made years ago just after we were married. The surveyor started from the wrong rock up the brook, and the line then run cut off that part which Mr. Sinclair is now claiming. But it was rectified just as soon as my husband came home, and there has been no trouble since until now."
"Did Mr. Sinclair notify you that he was going to have a new line run?" Jasper enquired.
"No, I knew nothing about what was taking place until I received that letter."
"I wonder what suggested such a thing to him?" Jasper mused as if to himself. "There must have been something."
"Why, I think I know." Betty exclaimed. "I do not believe he ever thought about it until that day he was talking to Mr. David and me up the brook. We were near Pyramid Rock, and I told him about the mistake the surveyor had made years ago in running the line. He seemed to be very much interested then. Maybe that was what started it. Just think, it was all my fault. Oh, if I could only hold my tongue once in a while how much good it would do."