But in a minute we stopped laughing, stopped sudden, too, I can tell you, for there, standing between us and the dog—almost like he had dropped out of the sky—was a boy. We had been so busy watching the dog and porcupine we hadn’t seen him come or which way he came from. The first we knew there he stood with his arms folded, scowling at us.
He wasn’t as tall as Binney, but he was broader. He looked strong—and for all his size, he looked sort of, well, I guess stately is the only word to describe it. He was foreign. His skin was dark, and his eyes were black, and his hair was black and straight—and it wasn’t parted. I wondered how Mark Tidd had figured that out. He was angry, but for all of that, and for all his color and his foreign look, he was handsome. He stood there looking at us for a moment like he was making up his mind what to do with us. Then he said in just as good English as any of us could speak, only more careful, and sounding, somehow, as if he had to remember and take pains to find the words:
“You have hurt my dog. How dare you hurt my dog?”
The way he spoke made you sort of jump.
“It was the p-p-porcupine,” says Mark, pointing to where the little animal was scurrying away. “Your dog chased it and got quills in his nose. We haven’t touched him.”
“You laughed at him when he was hurt.”
“Yes, and you’d have l-laughed, too. He isn’t hurt much. The quills will come out easy, and in a day or two he’ll be as well as ever—and have a l-lot more sense. He’ll know better than to tackle another p-porcupine.”
The boy looked at us, right in the eyes, without speaking for a couple of minutes. I don’t remember ever to have had anybody look at me just like that. It was a sort of judge-of-the-supreme-court look.
“What are you doing here?” he says, when he got through looking us over.
Mark Tidd grinned that jolly grin of his, the grin he gets on when he wants to make friends or be particularly agreeable.