drawled the first speaker,
after a gulp of coffee from his thick china cup. "Some of the boys at
Beckett's, you know, they're a tough crowd, was riggin' him about what
you said to him down to the Forks, and Ged spit out that he'd give a
lump of money to see you on your back."

"Huh!" grunted Uncle Henry.

"And some of 'em took him up, got the old man right down to cases."

"That so?" asked Mr. Sherwood curiously. "What's Ged going to do?
Challenge me to a game of cat's cradle? Or does he want to settle the
business at draughts, three best out o' five?"

"Now you know dern well, Hen," said the other, as some of the listeners
laughed loudly at Mr. Sherwood's sally, "that old Ged Raffer will never
lock horns with you 'ceptin' it's in court, where he'll have the full
pertection of the law, and a grain the best of it into the bargain."

"Well, I s'pose that's so," admitted Nan's uncle, rather gloomily, she
thought.

"So, if Beckett's crowd are int'rested in bumping you a whole lot, you
may be sure Ged's promised 'em real money for it."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Uncle Henry. "You're fooling now. He hasn't hired any
half-baked chip-eaters and Canucks to try and beat me up?"

"I ain't foolin'."

"Pshaw!"

"You kin 'pshaw' till the cows come home," cried the other heatedly. "I
got it straight."

"Who from?"

"Sim Barkis, him what's cookin' for Beckett's crew."

"Good man, Sim. Never caught him in a lie yet. You are beginning to
sound reasonable, Josh," and Mr. Sherwood put down his knife and fork
and looked shrewdly at his informant. "Now tell me," he said, "how much
is Sim going to get for helping to pay Ged Raffer's debts?"

"Har!" ejaculated the other man. "You know Sim ain't that kind."

"All right, then. How much does he say the gang's going to split between
'em after they've done me up brown according to contract?" scoffed Uncle
Henry, and Nan realized that her giant relative had not the least fear
of not being able to meet any number of enemies in the open.

"Sim come away before they got that far. Of course Ged didn't say right
out in open meetin' that he'd give so many dollars for your scalp. But
he got 'em all int'rested, and it wouldn't surprise him, so Sim said, if
on the quiet some of those plug-uglies had agreed to do the job."

Nan shuddered, and had long since stopped eating. But nobody paid any
attention to her at the moment.

Uncle Henry drawled: "They're going to do the hardest day's job for t