"Don't need you," growled the geologist. "Two of us is enough."
"Is that so?" sarcastically, from Billie. "Well, it'll take more than two of you to get it over to Rolla!"
"What do you mean?" hotly.
"I mean," with deliberation,—"that if you and the doctor try to interfere I'll break up our circle here!" They stared at her incredulously. "I sure will! I'm not going to lend my mental influence for any such purpose!"
"My dear," protested the doctor gently, "you know how it is: the combined efforts of the four of us is required in order to keep in touch with Sanus. Surely you would not—"
"Oh, yes, I would!" Billie was earnestness itself. "Mr. Van Emmon was so good as to blame me for what I did in that Capellette mix-up; now, if you please, I'm going to see to it that this one, anyhow, works itself out without our interference!"
"Well, I'll be darned!" The geologist looked again, to make sure it was really his wife who had been talking thus. "I'm mighty glad to know that you're not intending to warn Supreme, anyhow!"
"Maybe I shall! snapped Bilhe.
"If you do," stated the doctor quietly, "then I'll break the circle myself." They looked at him with a renewal of their former respect as he concluded emphatically: "If you won't help us stop this slave raid, Billie, then, by George, you'll at least let the bees fight it out on their own!"
And so the matter stood, so far as the investigators were concerned.
They were to be lookers-on, nothing more.