Who was sailing that boat?” And when told, he said he would settle with Marcy before the day was done. “Can’t none of ’em hurt my girl without hearing from me,” he added.
The excitement soon died down, and the skaters scattered in various directions. In the meantime, to avoid being questioned about the affair, Dan Marcy, who was a burly fellow of twenty, and a good deal of a bully, turned his ice boat about, and went sailing up the lake once more.
Some of the lads on the lake were out for a game of snap the whip, and Joe, Harry and Fred readily joined in this sport. At the third snap, Fred was placed on the end of the line.
“Oh, but we won’t do a thing to Fred,” whispered one of the boys, and word was sent along to make this snap an extra sharp one.
“You can’t rattle me!” sang out Fred, as the skating became faster and faster. “I’m here every time, I am. Let her go, everybody, whoop!” And then he had to stop talking, for he could no longer keep up. The line broke, and like a flash Fred spun around, lost his footing, and turned over and over, to bring up in a big snowbank on the shore.
“Hello, Fred, where are you bound?” sang out Harry.
“Where – where am I bound?” spluttered the stout youth, as he emerged and cleaned the snow from out of his collar and sleeves. “I don’t know.” He paused to catch his breath. “Reckon I’m in training for a trip to the North Pole.”
Half an hour later found the Westmore boys at home for dinner. There was something of a family gathering this Christmas day, mostly elderly people, so neither Joe nor Harry had a chance to speak to their father about the hunting trip they had in mind. Everybody was in the best of humor, and the table fairly bent beneath the load of good things placed upon it – turkey with cranberry sauce, potatoes, onions, squash, celery, and then followed pumpkin and mince pies, and nuts and raisins, until neither of the boys could eat a mouthful more. Both voted that Christmas dinner “just boss,” and the other folks agreed with them.
The middle of the afternoon found the lads at the lake again. It had clouded over once more, and they were afraid that another fall of snow might stop skating for several weeks, if not for the balance of the season.
“We want to take the good of it while it lasts,” said Harry.
Dan Marcy was again out on his ice boat, and Joe and Harry, accompanied by Fred, followed the craft to a cove on the west shore. There seemed to be something the matter with the sail of the Silver Queen, and Marcy ran the craft into a snowbank for repairs.
“Say, what do you want around here?” demanded Dan Marcy, as soon as he caught sight of the Westmore boys. His face wore an ugly look, and his tone of voice was far from pleasant.
“I don’t know as that is any of your business, Dan Marcy,” returned Joe.
“Ain’t it? We’ll see. I understand you’ve been telling folks that I tried to run into you and that Runnell girl on purpose.”
“You didn’t take much care to keep your ice boat out of the way.”
“It was your business to keep out of the way. You knew I was trying to beat the record?”
“Do you own the lake?” came from Harry.
“Maybe you’ve got a mortgage on the ice?” put in Fred.
Now the year before, Dan Marcy had been in the ice business, and had made a failure of it, and this remark caused him to look more ugly than ever.
“See here, for two pins I’d pitch into the lot of you, and give you a sound thrashing!” he roared.
“Would you?” came sharply from Joe. “Sorry I haven’t the pins.”
“I’ll give you an order on our servant girl for two clothespins, if they’ll do,” put in Fred.
“Then you want that thrashing, do you?” growled Dan Marcy; but as he looked at the three sturdy lads he made no movement to begin the encounter.
“If anybody needs a thrashing it is you, for trying to run down Cora Runnell,” said Joe. “It was a mean piece of business, and you know it as well as we do.”
“You shut up, Joe Westmore!” Marcy picked up a hammer with which he had been driving one of the blocks of the sail. “Say another word, and I’ll crack you with this!” He advanced so threateningly that Joe fell back a few steps. As he did this, a form appeared on the lake shore, and an instant later Dan Marcy felt himself caught by the collar and hurled flat on his back.
“I reckon as how this is my quarrel,” came in the high-pitched voice of Joel Runnell. “I’ve been looking for you for the past hour, Dan Marcy. I’ll teach you to run down my girl. If it hadn’t a-been for Joe Westmore she might have been killed.”
“Let go!” roared Marcy, and scrambled to his feet, red with rage. He rushed at the old hunter with the hammer raised as if to strike, but before he could land a blow, Joe caught hold of the tool and wrenched it from his grasp.
“Give me that hammer! Do you hear? I want that hammer!” went on the bully. Then he found himself on his back a second time, with his nose bleeding profusely from a blow Joel Runnell had delivered.
“Have you had enough?” demanded the old hunter, wrathfully. “Have you? If not, I’ll give you some more in double-quick order.”
“Don’t – don’t hit me again,” gasped Dan Marcy. All his courage seemed to desert him. “It ain’t fair to fight four to one, nohow!”
“I can take care of you alone,” retorted Joel Runnell, quickly. “I asked you if you had had enough. Come, what do you say?” And the old hunter held up his clinched fists.
“I – I don’t want to fight.”
“That means that you back down. All right. After this you let my girl alone – and let these lads alone, too. If you don’t, you’ll hear from me in a way you won’t like.”
There was an awkward pause, and Dan Marcy wiped the blood from his face, and shoved off on his ice boat.
“We’ll see about this some other time,” he called out when at a safe distance. “I shan’t forget it, mind that!”
“He’s a bully if there ever was one,” observed Harry.
“And a coward into the bargain,” put in Joel Runnell. “Watch out for him, or he may play you foul.”
“I certainly shall watch him after this,” said Joe.
“We’re glad you came along,” came from Fred. “We want to ask you something about hunting. I’ve got a new double-barreled shotgun and so has Joe, and we want to go out somewhere and try for big game.”
“And I’ve got a new camera, and I want to get some pictures of live game,” added Harry.
“You can’t get any big game around Lakeport. If you want anything worth while you’ll have to go out for several days or a week.”
“We’re willing to go out as long as our folks will let us,” explained Harry. “We haven’t said much about it yet, for we wanted to see you.”
“We thought you might like to take us out, or rather go
