Here Noble stopped to light his cigar which had gone out while he was talking.
CHAPTER VII.
A DOG WITH A HISTORY.
“YOU don’t want to say that out loud, Frank,” observed Scott.
“Say what out loud?” demanded Noble, after he had taken a few long pulls at his cigar to make sure that it was going again.
“That you hope Matt Coyle will have the courage to carry out the threats he made yesterday.”
“Of course not. But I can express my honest sentiments here, for we are all friends, I take it. Matt’s speech was a short one,” said Noble, once more addressing himself to Tom Bigden and his cousins, “but it was to the point. ‘You see all them there sail-boats ridin’ at anchor, an’ all them fine houses up there on the hill?’ said Matt. ‘Wal, the boats’ll sink if there’s holes knocked into ’em, an’ the houses’ll burn if there’s a match set to ’em, I reckon. Good-by till you hear from me agin.’ He hasn’t got a very handsome face at any time, Matt hasn’t, and his intense rage, and the black and blue lump as big as a hen’s egg, which had been raised on one of his cheeks by a whack from a guide’s fist, made him look like a savage in his war-paint. He was in dead earnest when he uttered the words, and if the Mount Airy boys, and men too, who have incurred his enmity don’t hear from him again, I shall be surprised.”
“And disappointed as well,” added Prime.
“I didn’t say that,” replied Noble.
“Of course you didn’t. Nobody said it, but I think we understand one another.”
Ralph and Loren looked frightened, while Tom drew admiring applause from the boys and gave expression to his feelings at the same time by dancing a few steps of a hornpipe.