At the boy's entrance he paused for an instant, glanced carelessly over the side of the stall, and then went on with his work.
"Playing night-owl, eh?" he remarked indifferently. "There's no rubbing-down for you to do, I reckon."
"There's a darn sight worse," returned the boy, throwing out the oath with a conscious swagger as he braced himself against the ladder that ran up to the loft.
His tone arrested Christopher's hand, and, lifting his head, the young man stood attentively regarding him, one arm lying upon the broad back of the old mare.
"Why, what's up now?" he questioned with a smile. Some fine chaff, which he had brought down from the loft, still clung to his hair and clothes and darkened his upper lip like a mustache.
"Grandpa's found it out and he's hopping," said the boy. "I always told you he would be, you know, and now it's come. If he ever catches me with you again he swears he'll give it to me like hell. He pressed tightly against the ladder and wagged his head defiantly. "But he needn't think he can bully me like that—not if I know it!"
"Well, he mustn't catch you again," returned Christopher, not troubling to soften his scorn of such cheap heroics; "we must manage better next time. Did you think to remind him, by the way, that I once took the trouble to save your life?"
"That's a fact, I didn't think of it. What would he have said, I wonder?"
Christopher raised his eyebrows. "Knocked your front teeth out, perhaps. He's like that, isn't he?"
"Oh, he's awfully fond of me, you know," protested the boy; "but it's his meddling ways that I can't stand. What business is it of his who my friends are? He hasn't got to take up with 'em, has he? Why, what he hates is for me to want to be with anybody but himself or Aunt Saidie. He'd like to keep me dangling all day to his coat tails, but it's not fair, and I won't have it. I'll show him whether I'm to be kept a kid forever or not!"