“What did I tell you, Mr. Hopkins?” said David, bitterly. “There are twenty men and more in this settlement who believe just as Mr. Owens does.”
“What’s the trouble here?” inquired Don, “and what does Mr. Owens believe?”
“O, Mr. Don, it’s dreadful,” cried Mrs. Evans, covering her face with her hands and sinking down upon the bench beside the door. “To think that my David should ever be accused of such a crime!”
“The trouble is, that the mail has been stolen,” said Hopkins, “and Mr. Owens, who was ordered out by the constable to assist in raising a ‘hue and cry’ after the robbers, has just been down here to comfort David with the assurance that he doesn’t believe a word of his story.”
“He had the impudence to tell me, to my face, that I was the thief,” exclaimed David, hotly. “He said that when I first began to ride the route he told several people about here that that mail would get into trouble through me sooner or later, and he seems delighted to find that his prediction has been fulfilled.”
“Why—I—I. _Eh?_” cried Don, who was utterly astounded; while the rest of the party, no less astonished and bewildered, crowded up closer to the speaker in order to catch every word.
“I don’t wonder that you are surprised,” said Hopkins. “So was I, when I found him back there in the country, bound and gagged, and laid away in a fence corner. Mr. Owens declares that David tied himself, but I know better.”
“What are you trying to get at, anyhow?” exclaimed Bert.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” chimed in Don. “Now, Dave, begin at the beginning and tell your story so that we can understand it.”
David complied, and for a few minutes held his auditors spell-bound. After he had described how the robbers had tied his hands and feet and concealed him in the bushes, Hopkins took up the narrative and told his part of it, adding that he and David had gone straight to the general, who, after listening to their story, took immediate steps to effect the capture of the robbers.
“But I am very much afraid that he will never find them,” said Hopkins. “He acknowledged that he didn’t suspect anybody, and David says he never saw the men before. Besides, they were disguised as negroes.”
“I don’t care for that,” said Don. “I know who did it, and so do you. Stay here, everybody.”