THE ENCOUNTER AT THE BROOK.
The head of the speaker, crowned by an old straw hat, rose above a clump
of alders on the opposite bank of the stream. His coatless shoulders,
over one of which ran a single suspender, likewise could be seen. He
wore no collar, and his shirt was open at the throat, exposing a hairy
bit of chest. A “peeled” fishing pole, projecting upward beside him,
betrayed the purpose of his visit to the brook at that early hour.
Somewhat less 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?”
The eyes of the chap on the opposite bank glared still more fiercely,
and his lips, drawn back a little, revealed some uneven snags in crying
need of a toothbrush.
“That ain’t none of your business,” he retorted; “but I don’t mind
tellin’ ye it’s Simpson—Jim Simpson. My father, Hank Simpson, owns this
strip of land, sixty-three acres, running from the lake back to the main
road, and we don’t propose to have no trespassers on it. Understand
that. What fish there is in this brook we want for ourselves.”
“Where does your land begin? Where is the boundary on this side toward
Pleasant Point?”
“That ain’t none of your business, either. Think I’m going to bother to
tell you where the bound’ries are? You’re on our property, and you want
to get off and stay off, I tell ye that. If ye don’t——” He lifted his
clenched fist in a threatening gesture.
“Regular sus-scrapper, isn’t he?” chuckled Springer, who, stimulated by
his companion’s example, had become outwardly cool and undisturbed.
As far as Rod was concerned, this calmness was all outward seeming, for
beneath the surface his naturally belligerent disposition had been
aroused by the threatening truculence and insolence of young Simpson.
“If you don’t tell us where your boundary line is,” said Rod, in that
quiet way which Simpson mistook for timidity, “how are we going to know
when we’re trespassing? We’re camping on Pleasant Point, and——”
“If you don’t come over this way you won’t do no trespassin’, and you’ll
be likely to save yourselves a lot of trouble.”
“But what if we do come this way? What sort of trouble will we get
into?”
“You’ll get your heads everlastingly lammed off your shoulders, that’s
what,” snarled Jim Simpson.
“You seem to consider it your specialty to lam folks’ heads off their
shoulders. I’ve seen a heap of pugnacious parties like you before this,
and I’ve always observed that if they were persevering enough they
eventually succeeded in getting a lamming themselves.”
“What’s that?” shouted the fellow, dropping his fishing pole and
starting forward into the brook until the water rose round the ankles of
the long-legged boots into which his trousers were tucked. “What’re you
doin’, making fightin’ talk to me? If you be, by heck, I’ll come over
there and hand you one right on the kisser!”
“You’d better stay where you are, I reckon,” returned Rodney in
continued calmness. “I’m not looking for a scrap, having learned by
observation that the gent who prances round with a chip on his shoulder
sure gets it knocked off by a better chap some day.”
“Gee whiz!” hissed Springer. “He’s gug-going to come over! It looks like
a mix-up.”
“If he picks up a fight, leave him to me,” said Rodney, in a low tone.
“We’re not hunting for trouble, but I admit this gent’s deportment is
right displeasing to me, and I don’t think it advisable to let him
browbeat us or drive us away like frightened sheep.”
Picking the shallow places, Jim Simpson waded the brook, maintaining a
fierce and threatening manner, though possibly he was somewhat surprised
by the lack of alarm evinced in the bearing of the young campers.
“You’ll find there ain’t no fooling about this business,” he declared,
as he emerged from the water and paused a few feet distant, beginning to
roll up his shirt sleeves. “You better skedaddle before I pitch into ye.
I don’t want to hurt ye, but——”
“That’s right kind of you,” scoffed Rod. “I opined by your remarks that
you were yearning to hand us a sample lamming. If we had been properly
warned in advance, or had seen ‘No trespassing’ signs hereabouts, we
might not have fished in this brook.”
Simpson seemed to interpret this as a concession or symptom of backing
down, and it made him still more arrogant in his manner.
“I told ye you’d better skedaddle, to start with, but you was chumps
enough to stand and argue with me, and you even handed me some sass. I
won’t take sass from nobody like you, by heck! Now you’ve got jest about
ten seconds to pick up and hiper. Dig, I tell ye—dig out!”
“We’re no diggers,” returned the Texan, whose eyes had swiftly taken
cognizance of the immediate footing, that he might not stumble over any
obstruction upon the ground in the encounter which seemed unavertible
save by retreat. He had passed his rod to Springer, in order that his
hands might be free.
“There’ll be some doings,” Phil whispered to himself, “when Mr. Simpson
attempts to put his bub-brand on this Texas maverick.”
Phil knew Rod’s nature—knew that he was a quiet, peaceful chap, who
never sought trouble and usually tried to avoid it when he could without
positive loss of self-respect. Furthermore, Phil was aware by
observation that, when aroused through physical violence, the boy from
Texas, having a fiery temper, was a most formidable and dangerous
antagonist.
Well aware of his own volcanic nature when provoked or aroused, since
coming to Oakdale, it had been Rodney Grant’s constant purpose to hold
himself in check and master the fighting strain in his blood. In this he
had succeeded at first only by avoiding violent clashes of any sort,
which had, for the time being, given him among the Oakdale lads the
reputation of being something of a coward. In the end, however,
circumstances and events had conspired to reveal their mistake of
judgment, and had led them to acknowledge Rodney as a thoroughbred in
whose veins there was not one craven drop.
Feeling certain he knew quite well what would happen to Simpson if the
fellow attacked Rod, Phil believed it a duty to give him fair warning.
“Sus-say, look a’ here,” he cried, pointing a finger at the pugnacious
rustic, “if you don’t want to get the worst lul-licking you ever had,
you better keep away from this fellow. He’ll pup-punch the packing out
of you in just about two jabs.”
“Ho! ho! Is that so!” mocked Simpson. “Why, I can wallop the both of
you, and not half try. I’ll learn ye to fish in our brook! So that’s
what ye ketched, is it?” he went on, his eye falling on the contents of
the basket, at sight of which he became still more enraged. “Well, you
won’t take any of them to your old camp.” With a sudden swing of his
heavy boot, he kicked the basket over and sent the fish flying toward
the water, some of them falling into it.
A moment later, as Springer scrambled frantically to recover as many of
those fish as possible, Grant, moving like lightning, seized Simpson by
the neck and a convenient part of his trousers and pitched him sprawling
into the brook.