Evadna seemed to take his tone as a direct challenge. “I was scared, but I know quite well what I saw. He wasn't a tramp. He had a regular camp, with a coffee-pot and frying-pan and blankets. And there a line of stakes across the strawberry patch.”
Before, the breakfast had continued to seem an important incident temporarily suspended. Now Peaceful Hart laid hand to his beard, eyed his wife questioningly, let his glance flicker over the faces of his sons, and straightened his shoulders unconsciously. Good Indian was at the door, his mouth set in a thin, straight, fighting line. Wally and Jack were sliding their chairs back from the table preparing to follow him.
“I guess it ain't anything much,” Peaceful opined optimistically. “They can't do anything but steal berries, and they're most gone, anyhow. Go ask him what he wants, down there.” The last sentence was but feeble sort of fiction that his boys would await his commands; as a matter of fact, they were outside before he spoke.
“Take the dogs along,” called out Baumberger, quite as futilely, for not one of the boys was within hearing.
Until they heard footsteps returning at a run, the four stayed where they were. Baumberger rumbled on in a desultory sort of way, which might have caused an observant person to wonder where was his lawyer training, and the deep cunning and skill with which he was credited, for his words were as profitless and inconsequential as an old woman's. He talked about tramps, and dogs that barked o' nights, and touched gallantly upon feminine timidity and the natural, protective instincts of men.
Peaceful Hart may have heard half of what he said—but more likely he heard none of it. He sat drawing his white beard through his hand, and his mild, blue eyes were turned often to Phoebe in mute question. Phoebe herself was listening, but not to Baumberger; she was permitting Evadna to tuck in stray locks of her soft, brown hair, but her face was turned to the door which opened upon the porch. At the first clatter of running footsteps on the porch, she and Peaceful pushed back their chairs instinctively.
The runner was Donny, and every freckle stood out distinctly upon his face.
“There's four of 'em, papa!” he shouted, all in one breath. “They're jumpin' the ranch for placer claims. They said so. Each one's got a claim, and they're campin' on the corners, so they'll be close together. They're goin' to wash gold. Good Injun—”
“Oh!” screamed Evadna suddenly. “Don't let him—don't let them hurt him, Uncle Hart!”
“Aw, they ain't fightin',” Donny assured her disgustedly. “They're chewin' the rag down there, is all. Good Injun knows one of 'em.”