Jim Leonard tell them that a man would give up his watermelon
patch, and how could they believe such a lie, poor, foolish boys?"

"They wished to believe it," said Pony's father, "and so did Jim, I dare
say."

"He might have got some of them killed, if Bunty Williams had fired his
gun at them," said Pony's mother; and he could see that she was not
half-satisfied with what his father said.

"Perhaps it was a hoe, after all. You can't shoot anybody with a
hoe-handle, and there is nothing to prove that it was a gun but Jim's
word."

"Yes, and here poor Pony has been so sick from it all, and Jim Leonard
gets off without anything."

"You are always wanting the tower to fall on the wicked," said Pony's
father, laughing. "When it came to the worst, Jim didn't take the melons
any more than Pony did. And he seems to have wanted to back out of the
whole affair at one time."

"Oh! And do you think that excuses him?"

"No, I don't. But I think he's had a worse time, if that's any comfort,
than Pony has. He has suffered the fate of all liars. Sooner or later
their lies outwit them and overmaster them, for whenever people believe a
liar he is forced to act as if he had spoken the truth. That's worse than
having a tower fall on you, or pains in the stomach."

Pony's mother was silent for a moment as if she could not answer, and then
she said, "Well, all I know is, I wish there was no such boy in this town
as Jim Leonard."

V

ABOUT RUNNING AWAY TO THE INDIAN
RESERVATION ON A CANAL-BOAT, AND
HOW THE PLAN FAILED

Now, anybody can see the kind of a boy that Jim Leonard was, pretty well;
and the strange thing of it was that he could have such a boy as Pony
Baker under him so. But, anyway, Pony liked Jim, as much as his mother
hated him, and he believed everything Jim said in spite of all that had
happened.

After Jim promised to find out whether there was any Indian reservation
that you could walk to, he pretended to study out in the geography that
the only reservation there was in the State was away up close to Lake
Erie, but it was not far from the same canal that ran through the Boy's
Town to the lake, and Jim said, "I'll tell you what, Pony! The way to do
will be to get into a canal-boat, somehow, and that will take you to the
reservation without your hardly having to walk a step; and you can have
fun on the boat, too."

Pony agreed that this would be the best way, but he did not really like
the notion of li