She dropped the tea-cup, from which she had pretended to be drinking unconcernedly.
“What? Why, what do you want my husband for?” she asked in pitiful desperation. SHE looked like the guilty party.
“Oh, you know well enough,” he sneered impatiently.
Mary rose and faced him. “How dare you talk to my mother like that?” she cried. “If my poor brother Tom was only here—you—you coward!”
The youngest trooper whispered something to his senior, and then, stung by a sharp retort, said:
“Well, you needn't be a pig.”
His two companions passed through into the spare skillion, where they found some beef in a cask, and more already salted down under a bag on the end of a bench; then they went out at the back and had a look at the cow-yard. The younger trooper lingered behind.
“I'll try and get them up the gully on some excuse,” he whispered to Mary. “You plant the hide before we come back.”
“It's too late. Look there!” She pointed through the doorway.
The other two were at the logs where the fire had been; the burning hide had stuck to the logs in places like glue.