“Just a moment, Mr. Flagg!”
“Shaved, right in the start of the driving season! Shut up! I can see what’s happening. I heard you had brought the dynamite. But somebody else told me. Yes, told me other news! I can’t depend on you any longer to bring me reports. But you’re planting something worse than dynamite under yourself. Parading a girl and keeping me waiting and——”
“Let me warn you, sir. Only my pride in doing a job I have set out to do is keeping me on with you. If you insult that young lady by another word I’ll quit you cold, here and now!”
There was a moment of silence.
Rickety Dick, sitting on his stool with a cat in his arms, wriggled as uneasily as did the cat, who had been alarmed by the high voices.
“Talk about dynamite being dangerous!” muttered Flagg. “There’s something else——”
But when he looked into Latisan’s countenance he lowered the shade of the lamp and did not state what the something else was.
“If you know about the dynamite, sir, there’s no need of my saying anything. It’s on its way north. I shall start for headwaters at daybreak. I’ll be down to report as soon as possible.”
“When you get up on the drive, you stay there, Latisan.”
“It’s my pledged word that I must report to you in person. You insisted on it. I don’t propose to give you any chance for come-backs. I shall report, Mr. Flagg.”