"I'll take the fish," he said. "You can go on with whatever you were doing."
They moved away toward the drain, and when they reached it Harry stood still a moment or two.
"It's a long while since I've seen dad look half so mad," he said. "When he sets his face that way it's sure to mean trouble. Anyway, when I saw Tillicum I felt kind of boiling over—as well as sorry."
"Did you notice what Mr. Barclay said about the pistol?" Frank asked.
"Why, of course," said Harry thoughtfully. "Now I don't know what they've been after, but it's plain enough that there was some danger in the thing. Mr. Barclay doesn't seem extra smart, but there's something in his look that suggests he wouldn't be easy scared, and he took a pistol along." Then he laughed in a significant manner and jumped down into the trench. "It's my idea those dope fellows are going to be sorry before dad gets through with them, and now we'll go on with the draining."
He fell to with the grubhoe and for the next half hour worked furiously, after which Jake appeared and called them in to dinner.
CHAPTER IX
A PLAIN HINT
Mr. Oliver bought another horse from one of his scattered neighbors, and a few days afterward he and Jake set off for an inlet along the coast near which a few ranchers lived. Harry explained to Frank that as they clubbed together and bought their supplies from Seattle a little steamer from the latter place called at the inlet now and then to deliver the goods, and his father had ordered a mower which was to be sent down by her.
Mr. Oliver did not come back until late in the evening a couple of days later, but as soon as he arrived he and Jake set to work to put the machine together, and it was getting dusk when at last they left it standing beneath the trees near the edge of a ravine. Early on the following morning the boys went back with them to see if it would work satisfactorily in cutting a little green timothy, but as they crossed the clearing Jake, who was leading the team a little distance in front of his companions, stopped suddenly.