Jake stared. Then a curious sort of smile flitted across his features.
“Hah!” he ejaculated.
And Tresler went on with cold indifference. “And, in the meantime, I may as well say that the primary object of my visit is to see Mr. Marbolt, not his foreman. That, I believe,” he added, pointing to the building on the hill, “is his house.”
Without waiting for a reply he stepped aside, and would have moved on. But Jake had swung round, and his hand fell heavily upon his shoulder.
“No, you don’t, my dandy cock!” he cried violently, his fingers painfully gripping the muscle under the Norfolk jacket.
Springing aside, and with one lithe twist, in a flash Tresler had released himself, and stood confronting the giant with blazing eyes and tense drawn muscles.
“Lay a hand on me again, and there’ll be trouble,” he said sharply, and there was an oddly furious burr in his speech.
The foreman stood for a moment as words failed him. Then his fury broke loose.
“I told you jest now,” he cried, falling back into the twang of the country as his rage mastered him, “that I run this layout——”
“And I tell you,” broke in the equally angry Tresler, “that I’ve nothing to do with you or the ranch either until I have seen your master. And I’ll have you know that if there’s any bulldozing to be done, you can keep it until I am one of the ‘hands.’ You shan’t lack opportunity.”