He protested against being blamed for being too confiding.

He had never dreamed, he said, that anyone could be so bold as to plan a thing like that.

It all sounded straight, about the spoiled negative and so forth.

He was very sorry that he had caused Luck Lindsay any inconvenience or annoyance, and he begged Luck's pardon several times in the course of his explanation of the details.
They left him still protesting and apologizing and explaining and touching his bandaged head with self-pitying tenderness.

In the street Luck turned to the sheriff as though his mind was made up to something which argument could not alter in the slightest degree.
"I realize that in a way I'm partly responsible for this," he said crisply.