“It’s all right, boys,” he heard a big voice boom. “He didn’t aim to do it. He pulled his punch. Twice he did it. He—”
The speaker broke off short. There was a girl at his side, or perhaps a young lady. Johnny was not sure. A round, freckled face and angry eyes, that was all he saw. In another second she would have been at him, tooth and nail. But the big foreman, who had done the talking, wrapped a long arm about her waist as he said, “It’s all right, Rusty. Everything is O. K., child. He didn’t aim to do it. An’ your daddy ain’t hurt none to speak of. It’s what they call a knockout. He’ll be ’round in a twinkle.”
At that the girl hid her face in the foreman’s jacket to murmur fiercely, “The brute! The ugly little brute!”
And Johnny knew she meant him. Because she was a girl, because he had hurt her and he felt miserable, he slipped back into the outer fringe of the milling throng.
CHAPTER XII
A PTARMIGAN FEAST
As Red McGee opened his eyes he found the foreman, Dan Weston and his daughter, Rusty, bending over him.
“Wh-what!” he exclaimed, struggling to a sitting position, “what in the name of—”
“You fell into a fast one, Red.” The foreman laughed. The crowd joined in this laugh but not the girl. Sober of face, she stood looking down at her father.
“Daddy,” she began, “are you—”
“Do you mean to say that kid from the Stormy Petrel put me out?” Red McGee interrupted.