th a downward jerk and
began to remove the harness.

"What's the matter with you, anyway?" he asked. "Are you up to another
one of your infernal jokes?"

"No, I hain't," Wrinkle puffed. "That one about the baby was my last
one--on you, anyway. You took it like some old, peevish man, and sulked
and looked crooked for a week. I've tried to study out just how that
happened to go agin the grain so mighty awful, but I'm up agin a snag.
No, Alf, you make the bread-and-butter for this shebang, and you work
better when you hain't plagued. This time I come as a friend, and maybe
adviser--I don't know, it is all owin' to how you'll feel about it. For
all I know to the contrary, you may be as innocent as snow that hain't
been walked on, and, if you _are_, you ought to know what is going on
behind your back."

"Behind my back?" Henley jerked the words from him as he tossed the
harness into the buggy and allowed his horse to find his stall unguided.
"Well, what's going on behind my back?"

Wrinkle sucked audibly at the stem of his pipe before he delivered
himself into the eager expectancy that was massed between him and his
companion. "Alf," he began, finally, "you've dealt with humanity, in one
shape and another, enough to know that this is a sort of hide-bound
community, and, well, you driv' off this mornin' with a good-lookin'
young woman, didn't you?"

"Of course I did!" Henley retorted. "What of that?"

"You went toward Carlton, didn't you?"

"I went _to_ Carlton," Henley answered, restraining an outburst with
difficulty. "I took Miss Dixie over on--on business. It was transacted,
and--"

"You didn't tell Hettie whar you was bound for?"

"I didn't, because I didn't think it made any difference. She's never
interested in what I do or where I go, and there was no reason for
telling her."

"Maybe not--maybe not," Wrinkle answered, aimlessly, "but it wouldn't
'a' done yore case any harm if you had sorter tetched on it before
startin' out. You see, Carrie Wade sa'ntered over about eleven o'clock.
She hain't been a constant visitor at our house, and as she had a kind
o' fidgety walk on her, an' a curious dazzle in her eyes, I knowed she
hadn't come to see the pattern of the new quilt as she claimed, and so,
bein' a friend of yourn, I set down at the window and listened,
wonderin' when she'd quit her eternal preamble an' git down to business.
Purty soon I knowed land was in sight, for she said, like she was in a
sort of