than twenty years of age, he was not a prepossessing looking fellow as he glared angrily at the surprised fishermen, who returned his gaze in silence, seemingly stricken dumb for the moment by his startling and unwelcome appearance.
“Say, you fellers,” again called the stranger in that challenging, threatening tone of anger, “what business you got fishing in this here brook? You’ll git into trouble, trespassin’ on private property.”
“Jug-jug-jingoes!” breathed Springer. “He gave me a start.”
“Is this brook private property?” asked Grant coolly.
“Is it?” snapped the fellow on the opposite side. “Of course ’tis. Everything’s private property ’round here. S’pose this land ain’t owned by nobody? You ought to know better’n that. Who be you, anyhow?”
“We’re camping near by on the lake,” explained Rod, maintaining his unruffled manner, “and we were not told that the streams running into this lake were closed by law.”
“They don’t haf to be closed by law, and I guess you know it, too,” was the retort. “Any man has got a right to keep trespassers off his property.”
“Do you own this brook?”
“My old man owns it, and that’s the same thing. We don’t ’low nobody but ourselves to fish it.”
“Have you posted signs, warning trespassers to keep off?” questioned Rodney. “We didn’t see any.”
“Nun-nary one,” put in Phil.
“If you had,” flung back the angry fellow, “I don’t s’pose you’d paid no ’tention to them, or else you’d ripped ’em down.”
“But you haven’t put up any such signs?” persisted Grant.
“That don’t make no difference at all,” declared the stranger, coming out from behind the alders and revealing a lean, muscular figure, with slightly stooped shoulders. “You hadn’t no right to fish here till you found out.”
“We were told we could fish anywhere on the lake or around it.”
“Who told ye that?”
“Herman Duckelstein.”
“That thick-headed old Dutchman? He don’t know nothin’. I’ve had to near punch the head off his pie-faced boy to keep him in his place.”
With calm, keen eyes the Texan took the measure of the arrogant stranger, betraying no symptom of alarm, a fact which seemed to increase the fellow’s irritation.
“So you near punched the head off Carl Duckelstein, did you?” said Grant, with a touch of scorn. “And I opine you’re two or three years older than he, while it’s right plain you’re much taller and stronger. You ought to be mighty proud of that performance. What’s your name?”
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