t I think about it."

"If you're going to get cranky," warned the cook, angrily, "you
needn't take the trouble."

"Punishing Alf isn't your work, Leon," Tom went on quietly. "I'm
one of the heads here, and the management of this camp has been
left more or less in my hands. I gave you a weak, deluded, almost
worthless little piece of humanity as a helper. I'll admit that
he isn't much good, but yet he's a boy aged fourteen, at any rate,
and therefore there may be in that boy the makings of a man.
Your way of tackling the job is no good. It's a fool way, and,
besides, it's a brutal, unmanly way."

"I guess you'd better stop, right where you are, Mister Reade!"
snapped Leon, an ugly scowl coming to his face. "I don't have
to take any such talk as that from you, even if you are the boss.
You may be the boss here, but I'm older and I've seen more of
the world. So you may pass on your way, Mister Reade, and I'll
mind my own business while you mind yours."

"Good!" smiled Tom amiably. "That's just the arrangement I've
been trying to get you to pledge yourself to. Mind your own business,
after this, just as you've promised. Don't play the brute with
small boys."

"You needn't think you can boss me, Mister Reade," sneered Leon,
a dangerous look again coming into his eyes. "I've told you that
I won't take that kind of talk from you."

"You'll have to listen to it, just as long as you stay in camp,"
Reade answered. "I don't want to be disagreeable with any man, and
never am when I can avoid it. But there are certain things I won't
have done here. One of them is the bullying of small boys by big
fellows like you. Do I make myself plain?"

"So plain," Leon answered, very quietly, as one hand traveled
back to the butt of the revolver hanging over his right hip, "that
I give you just ten seconds, Mister Reade, to get away and do
your talking in another part of the camp."

Tom saw the motion of the hand toward the weapon, though no change
in his calm face or steady eyes denoted the fact.

"I believe I've just one thing more to say to you, Leon. I've
told young Drew that he needn't bother about coming back as your
helper. He is to report to me, and I shall find him another job."

"Are you going to get away from here?" snarled the angry cook.

"Presently."

"I'll give you only until I count ten," Leon snapped, his hand still
resting on the butt of his revolver.

"You're not threatening me with your pisto