“Not just now,” Ned answered with some spirit. “There’s not much use to hatch mutiny, things being as they are.”
“You don’t say! There’s a rifle on the wall——”
“Always empty——”
“But the pistol I carry is always loaded. Why don’t you try to take it away from me?” Then his voice changed, surly and rumbling again. “But enough of that nonsense. You know what would happen to you if you tried anything—I’ve told you that already. There’s work to do to-day. There’s got to be another cabin—logs cut, built up, roof put on—a place for the three of you to bunk. That’s the work to-day. The three of you ought to get a big piece of it done to-day——”
“Miss Hardenworth? Is she well enough? Couldn’t she help your wife with the housework to-day?”
“It will take all three of you to do the work I’ll lay out. Lenore can learn to do her stint with the others. And hereafter, when you address me, call me ‘Sir.’ A mere matter of employer’s discipline——”
Because he knew his master, Ned nodded in agreement. “Yes, sir,” he returned simply. “One thing else. I can’t be expected to do real work in this kind of clothes. You’ve laid out furs and skins for the girls; I want to get something too that will keep me warm and dry.”
“I’m not responsible for the clothes you brought with you. You should have had greater respect for the North. Besides, it gives me pleasure, I assure you, to see you dressed as you are. It tones up the whole party.”
Stripped of his late conceit that might otherwise have concealed it from him, Ned caught every vestige of the man’s irony. “Do I get the warm clothes?” he demanded bluntly.
“When you earn them,” was the answer. “In a few days more you’ll be running out your traps, and everything you catch, at first, you can keep. You’ve got to prove yourself smarter than the animals before you get the right to wear their skins.”