He paid not the least apparent
attention to the wagon or the trunk, although he cast more than one
sidelong glance in that direction.
He walked up to the horse, stroked its nose, and said boisterously:
"Wish I had this layout--wouldn't I reach California like a nabob,
though!"
Then Bart went back to the stump. He purposely faced the patch of brush
where he knew his watchers were lurking.
Ransacking his pockets, with a comical, quizzical grin on his face, he
produced a solitary nickel, placed it ostentatiously on the tree stump
and remarked:
"Honesty is the best policy--there you are, landlord! and much obliged
for the handout."
Then, striking a jaunty dancing step, he started to cross the clearing,
whistling a jolly tune.
"Hey!"
Bart half expected the summons. He halted in professed wonderment,
looked up, to the right, to the left, in every direction except that
from which he was well aware the hail had come.
"Look here, you!"
Bart now turned in the right direction. A man of about thirty had
revealed himself from the brush.
He had small, bright eyes, a shrewd, narrow face, and Bart knew from
discription who he was--Buck Tolliver.
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