“Now, look here, Buck Looker,” said Bob, with a steely look in his eyes, before which both Buck and Lutz drew back. “I had hoped that we had got through with this kind of thing from you and your gang. Do you remember what you promised when we saved your life in the forest fire? You told us on your knees that you’d cut out all the dirty tricks that you had been trying to put over on us for the last year or two. Yet here you are, right after you’ve got back, doing the same old thing.”
“I tell you I didn’t do this on purpose,” muttered Buck, with a scowl.
“Look me straight in the eye and say that again,” demanded Bob.
Buck tried to, but before Bob’s steady gaze his eyes wavered and fell, and his words fell away into an inarticulate growl.
“Aw, what right have you to put me through the third degree?” he snarled. “I’ve told you once that I didn’t mean to, and that settles it.”
“No, it doesn’t settle it,” cried Joe, whose temper was of the hair-trigger variety. “I’m going to give you a thrashing right here and now.”
He made a move to throw off his coat, but Bob laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“Not this time, Joe,” he counseled. “Every dog, you know, is entitled to one bite. We’ll let this go for Buck’s first bite since he got back. It isn’t a dead certainty that he did it on purpose, though I believe he did. But I tell you this straight, Buck Looker, and you paste it in your hat. If anything like this happens again, you won’t get the benefit of the doubt, and I’ll give you the worst licking that you ever got in your life. I’ve thrashed you before, and you know that I can do it again. Now skip along before I change my mind and trim you right on the spot.”
Buck looked at first as though he were going to resent Bob’s words and tone, but a look at the latter’s fists that had involuntarily clenched themselves, made him think better of it, and, picking up the ball which, obeying his will, had caused the mischief, he and his crony slunk away, favoring the group with a malignant stare that told he was only biding his time to attempt some further rascality.
“A precious pair of rascals,” remarked Herb, disgustedly, as they watched the retreating figures.