"Do you really think they'd write to Uncle Hogan?"
"Sure! Tabitha knows him. She and that Glory girl with the red hair kept him all night last winter off some mountain he wanted to climb 'cause they didn't know who he was. She had a gun and shot at them; but when her father got there he said 'twas all right, and Uncle Hogan thinks Tabitha is the whole cheese now."
"Supposing we do—apologize, will they write to him still?"
"No, I guess not. If you'll promise to behave, they will let you stay until some woman who's going to take care of the kids most of the summer gets here. Then she can do as she pleases about writing. You better knuckle under, Billiard."
The older boy groaned. "You don't seem to care very much," he complained bitterly, feeling that Toady had deserted him at the most critical moment.
"I—I've apologized already," acknowledged the other. "I'd rather do that than have Uncle Hogan get after us."
"So would I," Billiard sulkily decided, and pulling himself up from his rocky seat, he slowly shambled down the mountainside, with Toady at his heels hugely enjoying his brother's humiliation, for, though comrades in mischief, the older boy loved to bully the younger, and Toady had a long list of scores to settle, so he could not refrain from grinning broadly behind Billiard's back, particularly since his part of the disagreeable program had already been accomplished.
"Better wash your face, first," he suggested, as Billiard made straight for the kitchen door, through which savory odors of supper cooking were beginning to steal.
"Aw, come off!"
"She won't let you in till you do."