I wouldn't 'a' minded it," he continued meditatively, "ef Spence Tucker had dropped a hint to me afore he put out." "And I suppose," said Mrs.Patterson angrily, "you'd have put out too ?" "I reckon," said Patterson simply.
Twice or thrice during the evening he referred, more or less directly, to this lack of confidence shown by his late debtor and employer, and seemed to feel it more keenly than the loss of property.

He confided his sentiments quite openly to the sheriff in possession, over the whiskey and euchre with which these gentlemen avoided the difficulties of their delicate relations.

He brooded over it as he handed the keys of the shop to the sheriff when they parted for the night, and was still thinking of it when the house was closed, everybody gone to bed, and he was fetching a fresh jug of water from the well.

The moon was at times obscured by flying clouds, the avant-couriers of the regular evening shower.

He was stooping over the well, when he sprang suddenly to his feet again.
"Who's there ?" he demanded sharply.
"Hush!" said a voice so low and faint it might have been a whisper of the wind in the palisades of the corral.