"Hif folks haint ready I can't 'elp it," said Bob.

"Who wasn't ready?" demanded Constance Faber. "You didn't wait for me,
I know."

"And you didn't wait for me or Mat Snead," added Sarah Ketchum,
"because we walked down to meet the wagon."

Clara Hooks's face had grown redder and redder during the
investigation; but if Clara _was_ a put-offer, she was not a coward or
a sneak.

"He waited for me," she now said, "but I think it's mean to tell it
wherever he goes."

"I haint told it nowheres."

"You just the same as told; you hinted."

"Wouldn't 'ave 'inted ef they hadn't kept slappin' at me," was Bob's
defense, which did not go far toward soothing the mortified Clara.

Not all of this party were pert talkers. Two were modest: Valentine
Duke and Mat Snead. These sat together, forming what the others called
the Quaker settlement, from the silence which prevailed in it. The
silence was now broken by a remark from Valentine Duke irrelevant to
any preceding.

"Nuts are plentier at Hawley's Grove than at Crow Roost," he jerked,
out, and then locked up again.