“Weren’t you warned to keep away from here before? Weren’t you told that your horses would be shot if you came?”
“Yes,” answered Jack, smiling a bit, “but you see we haven’t any horses with us now.”
“Hu! That’s a mighty poor joke,” sneered the man.
“I don’t think much of it myself, but it was the best I could make under the circumstances.”
Jack was as cool as a cucumber, while the man was visibly losing his temper.
“Lock ’em up!” burst out Jerry Chowden. “That Ranger fellow and Nat Anderson are always making trouble.”
“Say, when I want your advice I’ll ask for it,” said the man curtly. Just then the individual he had sent off to report about the sled came back.
“It’s there,” he said.
“Hum!” murmured the other. Then, turning to the group of men about him he said: “Better take ’em, and put ’em in one of the vacant cabins for the time being. Then I’ll decide what to do with them.”