Flora hesitated. “Won’t you let me stay, father?”
“No, my dear, I wish to talk privately with Redding—go.”
He patted her kindly on the head, and she left him with evident reluctance.
“Good-morning, Mr McLeod,” said Redding, as he approached.
“Good-morning,” replied the other stiffly, without extending his hand.
Redding flushed, but restrained himself, and continued in a calm matter-of-course tone:
“Thinking it probable that you might be in want of fresh provisions, I have run down with a small supply, which is at your service.”
“Thank you,” replied McLeod, still stiffly, “I am not quite destitute of fresh provisions, and happen to have a good supply of ammunition; besides, if I were starving I would not accept aid from one who has deceived me.”
“Deceived you!” exclaimed Redding, waxing indignant more at McLeod’s tone and manner than his words, “wherein have I deceived you?”
As he put the question his mind leaped to the line of demarcation between the properties at Jenkins Creek, and he racked his brains hastily to discover what he could have said or done at their first interview that could have been misunderstood. McLeod was one of those men in whom anger is easily increased by the exhibition of anger in others. It was therefore in a still more offensive tone that he said:—