"Send him word before I get back that five hundred!" cried Leslie aghast. "You don’t know dad. I can’t face him without it. Not much."
"But he’d see that you feel different––" Ross began.
"You don’t know dad," Leslie cut in harshly. "With the men it’s just the same. It’s ’stand and deliver’ or get out, and he’d treat me just the same."
The coming of the McKenzies put an end to further conversation. They came to announce their departure on the morrow.
"Any little thing you’d like us t’ git fer you?" Sandy asked the boys lazily. "Want us t’ bring ye any biled shirts or one of these here coats with long handled tails? If you fellers lay out t’ stay here all winter ye better lay in a stock of society rags, ’n’ dancin’ shoes."
"About the most useful dancing shoes we’ll need will be snow-shoes, I guess," Ross retorted.
Leslie, from the wood-pile, said little but watched the brothers closely. Neither paid more than a passing attention to him, concentrating their remarks on Ross. They left early and went up the Creek with the intention of paying a farewell call on Wilson.
"I don’t believe," said Leslie the following morning as he watched them take the trail leading over Crosby, "that they have ever seen me before. They don’t act as though they have, do they?"
"Haven’t seen a sign of it since that first night," declared Ross, "and yet what I overheard, you know––"
"Must have referred to you," returned Leslie with conviction.