Chapter XXI Revenge
“What’s the game?” finally asked Horace Pence, when he was sure the constable was out of hearing.
“Game? No game at all, I assure you,” Kingdon answered gravely. “Don’t lend yourself to suspicion, as many do, old chap. By the way, hand over that permit now, Horrors. It’s served its purpose in your hands, I am sure.”
Pence produced the paper without a moment’s indecision. But he said:
“I’d rather you didn’t think I swiped it out of your jacket pocket, Kingdon. I fancy it must have slipped out when you threw off your jacket that day to play ball. Joe Bootleg found it in the grass, afterward, and brought it to me.”
Kingdon looked straight into the black eyes of Horace as he accepted the permit in its envelope. “I believe you,” he said simply, putting it into his pocket.
Suddenly the coarse voice of Ben Comas broke in:
“All very fine, but I take it we go, just the same, Horrors. ’Twould have been better if we had got off the island before all this foolishness happened.”
Kingdon laughed at him cheerfully. “Not at all necessary. I don’t see why you should leave, now that things are so comfortable and pleasant all around.”
“What’s that?” demanded Pence, plainly startled.
“The island’s a cramped place, I know,” Kingdon responded, with a careless wave of his hand. “But it’s been more than a little fun rowing with you fellows. It puts quite a tang into the taste of it all. Hate to see you chaps move out when there’s no necessity for it.”
“Listen to that!” ejaculated Red Phillips from the rear.
“So you like a row?” Pence asked Kingdon, having recovered his self-possession.
“It’s better than monotony, though there might be other ways of passing the time.” Saying which, Rex turned his back on Pence and his party and started for the waterside. “Come on, fellows,” he suggested to his comrades, “let’s run across to that fishweir over yonder. I see they’re going to haul the trap.”
The five Walcott Hall boys silently boarded the catboat, while Pence and his comrades watched them, equally silent. When the Spoondrift was well away from the mooring place of the two canoes, Harry Kirby said:
“What have you got to say about that, Horrors? I don’t understand that Kingdon at all, do you?”
Pence did not reply at once. Ben’s harsh voice broke in:
“You fellows make me tired! He’s got some scheme to come back at us, of course. Why shouldn’t he? We ought to get out of here.”
“Where’ll we go?” complained Pudge MacComber, apprehending work before him.
“Don’t ask me.” Harry Kirby groaned. “Wish we’d never come.”
“We wouldn’t if it hadn’t been for this crazy Horrors.”
“All you can do is growl,” flared Kirby, who was Pence’s strongest admirer.
“Give that Kingdon and his crew half a show, and they’ll get us into hot water of some kind,” Ben fumed.
“Listen,” commanded the black-eyed chap, whose influence over his mates was by no means dissipated. “I want to know why we should get out of here at all?”
“But, Horrors,” Ben said, “you know they’ll do something mean to us.”
“You’re judging them by what you’d do yourself.”
“Didn’t they take our canoes in the first place?”
“But they didn’t keep them,” said Horrors. “That Kingdon is as square a chap as I ever saw.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Kirby. “Have you fallen in love with him?”
“Well, I can’t say I hate him just because he is ready to fight, as long as he fights fair.”
“I could lick him, easy,” boasted Kirby.
“A lot you could! Ask Joe, here, whether Rex Kingdon’s got a hard fist.”
The Indian lad’s countenance denoted his feelings on this point. Although he did not speak, his expression was a threat that none of the others quite understood.
“Look here,” insisted Pence argumentatively, “let’s settle this. Why should we leave Storm Island?”
“For one reason,” said Kirby, “because Kingdon can get us put off any time he feels like it.”
“Will he feel like it?”
“Why won’t he?” asked Ben Comas.
“He says,” returned Pence, “that he likes to have us here to row with, and why shouldn’t we accommodate him? He hasn’t got so much the better of us. We’ve had just as much fun out of it as he and his crowd have.”
“Quibb will be coming around again,” prophesied Kirby.
“Don’t you believe it. Kingdon has settled that. He’ll keep away from Storm Island. We’ll take Rex Kingdon at his word. He says he likes to fuss with us. Let’s give him all the sport in that line he wants.”
Joe Bootleg’s gloomy face caught the attention of the black-eyed lad. “You going to stay here, Mr. Pence?” the Indian asked.
“That’s my intention, Chief.”
“Them fellers stay?” demanded Joe, pointing off at the catboat.
“Sure.”
The Indian turned and started into the woods. He carried the camp hatchet that had been borrowed from the Walcott Hall boys.
“Where you going, Joe?” asked Ben, as Horace gave the fellow no further attention.
“Chop more firewood,” grunted Joe Bootleg.
But he clutched the hatchet handle with a grimness that might have startled the others had they seen his face. The fire of revengeful determination burned hotly in Joe Bootleg’s heart.