They stood contemplating each other, Harry quietly amused, the other afraid to speak lest he say too much.
The countryman put the package in his hip pocket.
“I thought you had plenty of room there,” said Harry; “no pistol after all, eh? You see, you shouldn’t have picked up the rock. That was a bad move, because men with pistols in their pockets don’t pick up rocks. And I have nothing but this rifle and I’m not going to use it. I’d no more think of using it than I would of using that tobacco. The only dangerous thing you have about you is your ‘Farmer’s Friend Plug Cut,’ and it’s no friend to you either, for it gave you dead away.”
“You think you can come up here with your city gab, don’t you, and scare honest folks on their own land, that don’t trespass, nor ask no favors, neither.”
“The scouts been asking for milk—or maybe water?” Harry asked, smiling. “What made you think you might be tracked? Because you knew there were scouts about?”
“Who said I thought I’d be tracked? I ain’t a-scared to have my spoor follered—”
“Where did you learn that word—spoor?”
Harry’s voice and manner were now a little sharp. Every time the fellow spoke he was tripped up. The more he said, the more he gave himself away. The active mind of his inquisitor balked and confounded him, and he had no resource except in a tirade or an attack, and these he wished to avoid, partly from genuine fear of this strange boy, and partly because he had no wish that the altercation be heard in the house. Harry saw that he had him. And he went on, speaking in short, choppy sentences, looking the other right in the eye, and sending each word straight to its mark like an arrow. He had no more fear or hesitancy than if he were talking to an infant. The great creature who stood before him looked at him as a grizzly bear might look at its keeper.
“Look here now. In the first place, you didn’t come down the road. Why not? When you had to cross it, you tried to vault up to the bridge and went down like a bag of oats. Then you tried to swing across the road like a monkey and went down again like a bag of meal. Why were you so anxious not to leave a footprint, eh? Then, after all that trouble, you left the ‘Farmer’s Solace’—or whatever you call it—Plug Cut, and went down the bank marking out a trail as clear as Broadway. Then, when I show up, the first thing you tell me is the rules of the boy scouts? What do you know about the boy scouts? You’ve been trying to imitate them with your smattering about ‘spooring.’ Who said anything about spooring? Hold on, now—I know what you’re going to say. Of course, there’s no crime in all that. You can come down the road standing on your head for all I care, but just the same I’m going to see what’s under that stone.”
“I thought a scout feller was supposed—”