Mr. Dunkelberg jumped into the breach then, saying: 

“I told Mr. Grimshaw that you hadn’t any grudge against him or his boy and that I knew you’d do what you could to help in this matter.”

“Of course I’ll help in any way I can,” my uncle answered.  “I couldn’t harm him if I tried—­not if he’s innocent.  All he’s got to do is to prove where he was that night.”

“Suppose he was lost in the woods?” Mr. Dunkelberg asked.

“The truth wouldn’t harm him any,” my uncle insisted.  “Them tracks wouldn’t fit his boots, an’ they’d have to.”

Mr. Dunkelberg turned to me and asked: 

“Are you sure that the stock of the gun you saw was broken?”

“Yes, sir-and I’m almost sure it was Amos that ran away with it.”

“Why?”

“I picked up a stone and threw it at him and it grazed the left side of his face, and the other night I saw the scar it made.”

My aunt and uncle and Mr. Dunkelberg moved with astonishment as I spoke of the scar.  Mr. Grimshaw, with keen eyes fixed upon me, gave a little grunt of incredulity.

“Huh!—­Liar!” he muttered.

“I am not a liar,” I declared with indignation, whereupon my aunt angrily stirred the fire in the stove and Uncle Peabody put his hand on my arm and said: 

“Hush, Bart!  Keep your temper, son.”

“If you tell these things you may be the means of sending an innocent boy to his death,” Mr. Dunkelberg said to me.  “I wouldn’t be too sure about ’em if I were you.  It’s so easy to be mistaken.  You couldn’t be sure in the dusk that the stone really hit him, could you?”

I answered:  “Yes, sir—­I saw the stone hit and I saw him put his hand on the place while he was running.  I guess it hurt him some.”

“Look a’ here, Baynes,” Mr. Grimshaw began in that familiar scolding tone of his.  “I know what you want an’ we might jest as well git right down to business first as last.  You keep this boy still an’ I’ll give ye five years’ interest.”

Aunt Deel gave a gasp and quickly covered her mouth with her hand.  Uncle Peabody changed color as he rose from his chair with a strange look on his face.  He swung his big right hand in the air as he said: 

“By the eternal jumpin’—­”

He stopped, pulled down the left sleeve of his flannel shirt and walked to the water pail and drank out of the dipper.

“The times are hard,” Grimshaw resumed in a milder tone.  “These days the rich men dunno what’s a-comin’ to ’em.  If you don’t have no interest to pay you ought to git along easy an’ give this boy the eddication of a Sile Wright.”

There was that in his tone and face which indicated that in his opinion Sile had more “eddication” than any man needed.

“Say, Mr. Grimshaw, I’m awful sorry for ye,” said my uncle as he returned to his chair, “but I’ve always learnt this boy to tell the truth an’ the hull truth.  I know the danger I’m in.  We’re gettin’ old.  It’ll be hard to start over ag’in an’ you can ruin us if ye want to an’ I’m as scared o’ ye as a mouse in a cat’s paw, but this boy has got to tell the truth right out plain.  I couldn’t muzzle him if I tried—­he’s too much of a man.  If you’re scared o’ the truth you mus’ know that Amos is guilty.”