"'Seems ter me,'" retorted Musgrove, also arising, "that it was you what's been makin' a fuss. I never seen sich a crowd."
Charlie Piper was thoroughly incensed. "Get out of this cabin, you grinning jackanapes," he cried, wrathfully. Then, walking to the door, he threw it open. "Take yourselves and that clumsy old brute out of here before my temper gets the best of me."
"Oh, we ain't pertic'lar anxious ter stay," sneered Musgrove, as he spitefully kicked over the box on which he had been sitting and edged away. "You're a nice one—a pertic'lar nice one—oh, yes! An' Springate ain't the feller I think he is, if he lets hisself be insulted. Imperdence, eh? Well, you know how ter hand it out, all right."
"An' I ain't standing fur no more of it, neither," added Tim Sladder. "Come on, Bowser!" And the Stony Creek boys stalked slowly and defiantly toward the door.
"Nice, pleasant evening," remarked Nat, dryly.
"Mean anything by that?" queried Piper.
"Come now, Charlie," interposed Heydon. "Those Stony Creek fellows have kind of spoiled things. Let it drop."
"If some one had had the courage to speak out in a manly fashion, this trouble could all have been avoided," returned the other. "Don't blame the whole thing on them."
"Boys!" exclaimed Heydon, with a deprecatory gesture. "No use taking that seriously. Call the thing ended. Won't you have a cup of coffee?"
"I think not," answered Nat, coldly, as he arose from his seat. "Guess I'll be going, too," he continued. "Hang it all—no matter what Yardsley said, it's no affair of ours."