"You dratted little pirate!" roared Mr. Fits, tensing for a leap forward. "I'll show you——"
"You'll get a lot more, if you don't quit trying to run things here," Dick threatened coolly.
Mr. Fits was waving his right hand aloft. Dick had struck the back of that hand with one of the pellets that the rifle carried in its magazine. The skin wasn't broken on that right hand, but the place stung, just the same, as Mr. Fits well knew.
"Hold on! Give him his supper, if he'll quiet down," urged Dave Darrin, aloud, adding, in a whisper to Dick:
"And while he's eating it I'll try to find the nearest house, and get men to come down here and grab him."
As cautiously as Dave spoke the big fellow heard him.
"Oh, you will, will you?" leered Fits. "Younker, how long do you think you'd live in the storm that's going on outside? It's a blizzard. If you don't believe me, go out and see. I'll wait till you come back."
For answer Dave ran to the door and opened it. A swirl of snow greeted Darrin in the face, and another big swirl of the white fluff blew in on the floor.
"Go right on out in the snow," jeered Mr. Fits. Dave did so, but the other five chums kept their gaze steadily on the unwelcome intruder.
"By Jove, fellows," muttered Dave, as he stamped back into the cabin, "the storm has grown so that I don't believe any of us could get through it for a distance of three or four miles."