Knowles gave the baby back to its half-fearful 163 mother, and rose to greet his guest with hospitable warmth: “Howdy, Mr. Blake! I’m downright glad to meet you. Hope you’ve found things comfortable and homelike.”
“Too much so,” asserted Blake, his eyes twinkling. “We came out expecting to rough-it.”
“Well, your lady won’t know the difference,” remarked Knowles.
“You’re quite mistaken, Daddy, really,” interposed his daughter. “She and Mr. Blake were wrecked in Africa and lived on roast leopards. We’ll have to feed them on mountain lions and bobcats.”
“If you mean that, Miss Chuckie,” put in Gowan, “I can get a bobcat in time for dinner tomorrow.”
The girl led the general outburst of laughter over this serious proposal. “Oh! oh! Kid! You’ll be the death of me!––Yet I sent you a joke-book last Christmas!”
“Couldn’t see anything funny in it,” replied the puncher. “I haven’t lost it, though. It came from you.”
To cover the girl’s blush at this blunt disclosure of sentiment, Mrs. Blake somewhat formally introduced her husband to the puncher. He shook Blake’s hand with like formality and politeness. But as their glances met, his gray eyes shone with the same cold suspicion with which he had regarded Ashton at their first meeting. Before that look the engineer’s 164 friendly eyes hardened to disks of burnished steel, and his big fist released its cordial grip of the other’s small, bony hand. He gave back hostility for hostility with the readiness of a born fighter. Gowan was the first to look away.
The incident passed so swiftly that only Knowles observed the outflash of enmity. His words indicated that he had anticipated the puncher’s attitude. He addressed Blake seriously: “Kid has been with us ever since he was a youngster and has always made my interests his own. Chuckie has been telling us what you said about putting through any project you once started.”
Blake nodded. “Yes. That is why I suggested to Miss Knowles that she call off the agreement under which I came on this visit. We shall gladly pay board, and I’ll merely knock around; or, if you prefer, we’ll leave you and go back tomorrow morning.”