Jeek scrutinized the face of the tramp rather closely before he made any reply, for this might get him into too tight a fix.
“What did they look like?” he asked guardedly.
Snadder described each of the boys very minutely.
“Yes, they’re the young upstarts. They belong at a town down the Harrapin River—Columbia. All swell-headed,” he added. “They killed my dog the other day and I was going to use him at this camp. Dog was worth a couple of hundred dollars.” Jeek went on to explain what he thought of the group of boys.
“Can’t you make them pay for killing a dog in this state? Mighty funny laws if you can’t,” suggested Snadder.
“I don’t know nothing about the laws of the state, but I know they’re going to pay for that dog—somehow. Fact is, I don’t know as they belong in this region right now, anyhow. I think their health would be better back home.” Jeek threw out these remarks as bait to the tramps.
But, from the conversational point of view, there was no reaction. Snadder knew that Jeek would do some thinking.
CHAPTER XIII
IN PERIL
Having had a meal of the fish and having spent a jolly time around the big log fire in the living room of the palatial camping house of the Parsons’s and the camp clock showing the time to be nine o’clock at night, the boys determined to go to bed.
All plans were set for an early morning expedition on skates out over Old Moose Lake, ending in the catching of some more fish.