t shot at."

"Anybody want to shoot you?" Mart inquired.

"Well and I guess you'll believe they did day before yesterday"

"If you're talking about up at that cabin, it was me."

Leander gave Mart a leer. "That won't do," said he. "He's put you up to
telling me that, and I'm going to Cornwall, Connecticut. I know what's
good for me, I guess."

"I tell you we were looking for the ferry, and I signalled you across
the river."

"No, no," said Leander. "I never seen you in my life. Don't you be like
him and take me for a fool."

"All right. Why did they want to murder you?"

"Why?" said the man, shrilly. "Why? Hadn't they broke in and filled
themselves up on his piah-chuck till they were crazy-drunk? And when I
came along didn't they--"

"When you came along they were nowhere near there," said Mart.

"Now you're going to claim it was me drunk it and scattered all them
bottles of his," screamed Leander, backing away. "I tell you I didn't.
I told him I didn't, and he knowed it well, too. But he's just that mean
when he's mad he likes to put a thing on me whether or no, when he never
seen me touch a drop of whiskey, nor any one else, neither. They were
riding and shooting loose over the country like they always do on a
drunk. And I'm glad they stole his stuff. What business had he to keep
it at Billy Moon's old cabin and send me away up there to see it was all
right? Let him do his own dirty work. I ain't going to break the laws on
the salary he pays me."

The Clallam family had gathered round Leander, who was stricken with
volubility. "It ain't once in a while, but it's every day and every
week," he went on, always in a woolly scream. "And the longer he ain't
caught the bolder he gets, and puts everything that goes wrong on to me.
Was it me traded them for that liquor this afternoon? It was his squaw,
Big Tracks, and he knowed it well. He lets that mud-faced baboon run the
house when he's off, and I don't have the keys nor nothing, and never
did have. But of course he had to come in and say it was me just because
he was mad about having you see them Siwashes hollering around. And he
come and shook me where I was sittin', and oh, my, he knowed well the
lie he was acting. I bet I've got the marks on my neck now. See any red
marks?" Leander exhibited the back of his head, but the violence done
him had evidently been fleeting. "He'll be awful good to you, for he's
that scared--"

Leander stood tremulously straight