"I'll know more than that," he said. "If any man says aught of me combined with a woman's name, he's got me to deal with, and smart too."
"Well, go to the township, you fool, and ask what's said," Barber exclaimed.
Dickson, scenting trouble for himself if Slaughter did anything of the kind, tried to remedy the unexpected development of his remarks.
"It's only borak," he repeated. "I was chaffing. I didn't mean anything. I thought you liked a joke. It's all right."
Barber laughed at this sudden change of front, for prior to Slaughter's appearance Dickson had been telling, with great glee, how he had put on to Slaughter's shoulders the reputation of his own iniquity. He had told the story with the air of one who knew that he had done something which would earn the admiration of his listeners; with the air of one who, mean and cowardly himself, regarded his companions as being similarly constituted. It was the suggestion of implied meanness that rankled with Barber, and made him interpose upon Dickson's efforts to beat a hasty retreat.
"It's a girl at the station, you fool," he said. "The youngster said——"
"Silence!" Slaughter shouted, as he advanced a step into the hut and faced the black-browed man, with the gleam in his eyes which had held the men of Birralong back, and his fists clenched. "You bandy her name, and——"
"Well, what then?" Barber interrupted.
"You'll deal with me," Slaughter added, facing the other, and meeting his eyes in as steady and as hard a glance as was given.
The other two occupants of the hut stood silent, watching—Tap from under his eyebrows, askance; Dickson, with a face that was growing pale and eyes that were shifty and timid. Barber and Slaughter faced each other, the one with a heavy, sullen look, the other with a gleam of fierce anger in his eyes—just as he had looked at Marmot and his comrades when they essayed to follow him into the schoolmaster's cottage. Barber, through his growing rage, realized that he had a different man to deal with than the ordinary run; he remembered also that to quarrel with Slaughter at the moment would be dangerous to the scheme he was working. He allowed his eyes to go down before the steady stare that faced him.