"What of it?" asked Bill in surprise. Willock had uttered words to which the dugout was unaccustomed.
"That's what it is," Willock growled; "it's Gledware!" His face had grown strangely dark and forbidding, and Wilfred, who had never imagined it could be altered by such an expression, handed him the letter with a sense of uneasiness.
"What of it?" reiterated Bill. "Suppose it IS Gledware; who is HE?"
"Do you know such a man?" Wilfred demanded.
"Out with it!" cried Bill, growing wrathful as the other glowered at the fire. "What's come over you? Look here, Brick Willock, Lahoma is your cousin, but I claim my share in that little girl and I ask you sharp and flat—"
"Oh you go to—!" cried Willock fiercely. "All of you."
Wilfred said lightly, "Red Feather has already gone there, perhaps."
"Eh?" Willock wheeled about as if roused to fresh uneasiness. The Indian chief had glided from the room, as silent and as unobtrusive as a shadow.
Willock sank on the bench beside Bill Atkins and said harshly, "Where's my pipe?"
"Don't you ask ME where your pipe is," snapped Bill. "Yonder it is in the comer where you dropped it."