“Again, you mean.”
“So ye’ve bin braggin’ about that, have ye?”
“Well, it was something to brag about, don’t you think so?—to beat up the heaviest hitter on Indian River? Gaspard Javet wouldn’t believe it possible until he saw you—and you told him you’d had a scrap with a bear.”
“It ain’t true,” snarled Tone. “It’s all lies. My word’s as good as yourn—an’ better. I won’t fight, anyhow.”
“In that case, please go away from here immediately!” exclaimed Catherine.
Her voice shook and her face was pale with anger and scorn.
“D’ye mean that?” cried Tone. “Order me off like a dog, without bite or sup, because I won’t fight with this here tramp? An’ me a neighbor from B’ilin’ Pot! Treat me worse’n ye’d treat a drunk Injun! That ain’t the way we do things in this country, Catherine MacKim. We don’t turn agin our neighbors jist to please slick-spoken hoboes a-sneakin’ ’round tryin’ to shake the game-wardens. Like enough there’s more nor game-wardens after this smart Alec—the police theirselves, like as not.”
“I wonder why you stand there talking when no one wants to listen to you,” said the girl.
Tone received those quiet words as if he had been struck in the face. He had been amazed and angered before—but the amazement and anger which he now felt were beyond anything of the sort he had ever known or even imagined. His eyes darkened with the dangerous shadows of outraged vanity and goaded fury. So he stared at her for a few seconds; and then, quick as a flash, he turned and flung himself upon Tom Akerley.
Tom, who had not seen the change in the other’s eyes, was not ready for the onslaught. Over he went, flat on his back in the long grass, with the big bushwhacker on top of him; and so he lay—for a fraction of a second.