I ever
knew a grown-up man to get off. I knew you were not strictly
accountable, but why didn't you say, 'Judge, your Honor, sir, at the
time the bank was being robbed I was in a garden with a young lady,
talking about the hereafter, the here and the heretofore?'"

"On the contrary, what made your Billy think it was Lake?"

Johnny told him, in detail.

"Pretty good article of plain thinking, wasn't it?" he concluded. "Yet
he mightn't have got started on the right track at all if he hadn't had
the straight tip about your bein' in a garden." Johnny's eye reverted to
the apple tree. "Lake found your noseguard, you know, where you left it.
I reckon maybe he saw you leave it there.--Say, Jeff! Lake's grandfather
must have been a white man. Anyhow, he's got one decent drop of blood in
him, from somewhere. For when we arrested him, he didn't say a word
about the garden. That was rather a good stunt, I think. Bully for
Lake, just once!"

"Right you are! And, Mr. J. Dines, I've been thinking----" Jeff began.

Johnny glanced at him anxiously.

"----and I've about come to the conclusion that we're some narrow
contracted and bigoted on Rainbow. We don't know it all. We ain't the
only pebble. From what I've seen of these Arcadia men they seem to be
pretty good stuff--and like as not it's just the same way all along the
beach. There's your Mr. White, and Griffith, and Gibson--did I tell you
about Gibson?"

Johnny flashed a brilliant smile. His smiles always looked larger than
they really were, because Johnny was a very small man.

"I saw Griffith and he gave me his version--several times. He's real
upset, Griffith.... Last time he told me, he leaned up against my neck
and wept because there was only ten commandments!"

"Didn't see Gibson, did you? You know him?"

"Nope. Pappy picked him up--or he picked Pappy up, rather. Hasn't been
seen since. I guess Gibby, old boy, has gone to the wild bunch. He
wouldn't suspect you of bein' innocent, and he dreamed he dwelt in
marble walls, makin' shoes for the state. So he gets cold feet and he
just naturally evaporates--good night!"

"Yes--he said he was going to hike out, or something to that effect,"
responded Jeff absently--the fact being that he was not thinking of
Gibson, at all, but was pondering deeply upon Miss Ellinor Hoffman. Had
she gone to New York according to the original plan? It did not seem
probable. Her face stood out before him--bright, vivid, sparkling, as he
h