"Oh! is that so?" sneered the other; "well, that's just about in line with what I was telling you. He knows the name of Snodgrass, apparently."
"I guessed he did from the way he acted after I'd told him about your father," George went on to say.
"Now, what could you have to say about my dad?" snapped the touchy Rufus.
"Well, Jem asked me first of all if one of the boys in camp was a Snodgrass, and of course I told him yes," George explained. "Then he asked me if I knew what your father's first name was. I told him I had heard it, but just then, somehow, it seemed to have slipped my memory. At that he up and asked me if it was Hiram."
Rufus gave a little cry at hearing this.
"It might be this man knew my father once on a time, or they may have had some business deal together; though that's hardly likely, because Jem Shock, poacher and farm laborer, would hardly be the one my father would be friendly with."
"I don't know anything about that," said George, swiftly; "but when I told him I remembered, on his mentioning it, that Hiram was your father's name, he gritted those big white teeth of his like everything, and his eyes certainly looked wicked enough to give a fellow a shiver."
"But didn't he say anything to explain why he had come to the camp?" asked Lil Artha, deeply interested in the story.
"He asked no favor, neither would he sit down and have a cup of coffee when I offered to make him one," George went on; "but he asked me to give you a message which he wanted you to carry to your father when you went home. He said: 'Tell that Snodgrass boy to say to his father that Jem Shock never will forgive the rank treachery that handed him over to a gang of sharpers in the land speculating business. And tell Hiram Snodgrass, too,' he went on, 'that he ought to thank his stars his son wasn't treated by Jem Shock as he deserved. Only for the prayers of a good woman in his cabin, and the influence of a sweet child, Jem Shock'd be tempted to do something wicked to wipe out the debt he owed your father.'"
Rufus went white on hearing this. Then the color surged back to his cheeks and his eyes sparkled like twin fires.