"Oh, no I didn't." Connie increased the pressure. "Come on, tell them what you told them a minute ago. Some of them look as if they don't believe it."
"COME ON, TELL THEM WHAT YOU TOLD THEM A MINUTE AGO"
"O-w-w, I'm a-a bear-cat—O-w-w!" whimpered the boy, with such a shame-faced expression that the men roared with delight.
Connie rose to his feet. "Climb up there and get my cap, and bring it down and hand it to me," he ordered tersely. "And the next time you feel wild, just let me know."
For only an instant the boy looked into the blue-grey eyes that regarded him steadily and then sullenly, without a word, he stepped onto the lower bunk, groped for a moment in the upper one and handed Connie his cap. A moment later the boy, accompanied by Saginaw Ed, stepped out into the night, but Saginaw saw what Connie did not—the look of crafty malevolence that flashed into Steve's eyes as they followed the departing pair.
"By jiminetty, kid, y're all right!" approved the man, as they walked toward the office. "That was as handy a piece of work as I ever seen, an' they ain't a man in camp'll fergit it. You're there! But keep yer eye on that cookee—he's a bad egg. Them kind can't take a lickin' like a man. He'll lay fer to git even, if it takes him all winter—not so much fer what you done to him as where you done it—with the men all lookin' on. They never will quit raggin' him with his bear-cat stuff—an' he knows it."