"I'm not used to talk like that, young fellow."
"You need not take it unless you like," Angus said.
Garland laughed contemptuously. "Sore, are you? This is the funniest thing I ever came across. I'm on to you, kid. It's too good to keep. I'll have to tell her."
Angus scowled at him in silence for a moment. Then, deliberately, bitterly, he gave him what is usually regarded as a perfectly good casus belli.
Garland began to realize that he had made a mistake. He had anticipated fun, but found this serious. If he thrashed Angus he could not very well continue to call at the ranch. Also, looking at the tall, raw-boned youth confronting him, he had an uneasy feeling that he might have his hands full if he tried. He had not realized till then how much the boy had grown. At bottom Garland was slightly deficient in sand. And so he tried to avert the break he had brought about.
"That's no way to talk," he said. "You'll have to learn to take a joke, some day."
"Maybe," Angus retorted. "But I will never learn to take what you are taking."
Garland flushed angrily. The element of truth in the words stung.
"I'd look well, beating up a boy," he said loftily. "I'm not going to quarrel with you. When you're older maybe you'll have more sense."
He left Angus, and marched away to the house. Angus looked after him till the door closed, and then struck straight away across the bare fields for the timber.