u'd find it easy to get a crow-bar through them."

Matlack looked up inquiringly. "Has he been thrashing you?" he asked.

"No, he hasn't," said Martin, sharply.

"You didn't fight him, then?"

"No, I didn't," was the answer.

"Why didn't you? You were here to take charge of this camp and keep things
in order. Why didn't you fight him?"

"I don't fight that sort of a man," said Martin, with an air which, if it
were not disdainful, was intended to be.

Matlack gazed at him a moment in silence, and then went on cutting the
bread. "I don't understand this thing," he said to himself. "I must look
into it."

CHAPTER XIII

THE WORLD GOES WRONG WITH MR. RAYBOLD

The next morning Mr. Archibald started out, very early, on a fishing
expedition by himself. He was an enthusiastic angler, and had not greatly
enjoyed the experience of the day before. He did not object to shooting if
there were any legitimate game to shoot, and he liked to tramp through the
mountain wilds under the guidance of such a man as Matlack; but to keep
company all day with Raybold, who, in the very heart of nature, talked
only of the gossip of the town, and who punctuated his small talk by
intermittent firing at everything which looked like a bird or suggested
the movements of an animal, was not agreeable to him. Clyde was a better
fellow, and Mr. Archibald liked him, but he was young and abstracted, and
the interest which clings around an abstracted person who is young is
often inconsiderable, so he determined for one day at least to leave Sir
Cupid to his own devices, for he could not spend all his time defending
Margery from amatory dawdle. For this one day he would leave the task to
his wife.

That day Mr. Raybold was in a moody mood. Early in the morning he had
walked to Sadler's, his object being to secure from the trunk which he had
left there a suit of ordinary summer clothes. He had come to think that
perhaps his bicycle attire, although very suitable for this sort of life,
failed to make him as attractive in the eyes of youth and beauty as he
might be if clothed in more becoming garments. It was the middle of the
afternoon before he returned, and as he carried a large package, he went
directly to his own camp, and in about half an hour afterwards he came
over to Camp Rob dressed in a light suit, which improved his general
appearance very much.

In his countenance, however, there was no improvement whatever, for he
looked more o