“I don’t know what to say,” Dick confessed. “Three or four weeks is a long time to wait for reinforcements. Even then we’ll probably be outnumbered. It’s rather difficult to decide. Perhaps you’d like to give up altogether, Sandy, and return to the post.”
Sandy’s face flamed a bright crimson.
“Are you trying to insult me—or what!” he demanded hotly.
“Of course not. I mean it. It’s no crime to run away if the job is too big for us. I’m not doubting your courage.”
“I’ll die and rot in my tracks before I go back to the post. If that’s what you’re figuring on doing, go ahead.”
For a full minute the two boys stood, face to face, breathing heavily. There was a gleam of defiance in Sandy’s eyes, while Dick’s face had become overshadowed with anger. Toma dropped the end of the lead-rope carefully on the ground and placed one foot on it. Then he straightened up, putting a hand on the shoulder of each one of the young belligerents.
“No fight here,” he grinned. “Dick, Sandy, you come with me. Toma show you nice place where fight all time, day an’ night. Mebbe you like that better.”
Dick and Sandy glared at each other for a moment, then grinned sheepishly. The matter was settled. They would go on to the mine.
CHAPTER XIII
THE RAIDING PARTY
Thunder River at last! Like most northern streams it had cut its channel deeply into the earth, through soil, rock and sandstone, and the result now, after ages of this corrosive action, was a deep canyon at the bottom of which roared and tumbled the mighty river.