MacNutt smiled sourly. “I won’t fire a good man the first time—I’ll just knock the daylights out of him,” he said. “As for McCane, I look for trouble with him.” Suddenly he swore with venom. “I’ll split his head with an axe if he crowds me again!”
“Oh, come—” Joe began.
“Sounds like talk, I know,” MacNutt interrupted. “But he nigh brained me with a peavey once, when I had only my bare hands. It’s coming to him, Mr. Kent. I’ll take nothing from him nor his crew.”
Joe, on his way back to town the following day, thought of MacNutt’s hard eyes and set mouth, and felt assured that he would meet any trouble half-way. His own disposition being rather combative on occasion, he endorsed his foreman’s attitude irrespective of the diplomacy of it.
IX
When he returned from Wind River, Kent determined, after clearing off what work had accumulated in his absence, to pay a visit to Edith Garwood. He sent no advance notice of his coming, and her surprise at seeing him was considerably more apparent than any joy she might have felt; for she was carrying on an interesting affair with a young gentleman who really did not know the extent of resources which had been in his family in the form of real estate for something over a century. It was most annoying that Joe Kent should turn up just then.
“I’m just going out,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“No particular reason,” said Joe, feeling the coolness of his reception. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. I have made engagements which I can’t very well break, even for you. If you had told me——”
“Don’t worry,” said Joe. “I’ll take what’s left. You’re going out, and I shan’t keep you. May I call to-night?”