but missed the knot-hole and rattled down.
There was flat derision in the following laughter, and Percival dug his
heel in the sod.

"Larf ahead! Hany one else try 'er?"

"Oh, shut up!" said some one across the ring. "We're pitchin' shoes."

Percival slouched off after his knife, and the frieze of small boys
scattered except a lint-haired Cameron who was nursing a stray cat
busily, cross-legged against the green boarding.

"Yon's Robert Sanford Cameron," said the smith. "He can say half his
catechism."

"Good kid," said Sanford. "I never could get any--"

Percival had wandered back and stood a yard off, glaring at Bill as the
largest object near.

"Think I can't, wot?"

"I'm not interested, and you're spoiling the game," said Bill, who
feared nothing alive except germs, and could afford to disregard most of
these. Sanford's fingers tightened on his whip.

"Ho!" coughed the cockney. "See! You--there!"

Robert Cameron looked up at the shout. The blade shot between the
child's head and the kitten and hummed gently, quivering in the wood.

"Hi could 'a' cut 'is throat," said Percival so complacently that
Sanford boiled.

"You scared him stiff," he choked. "You hog! Don't--"

"'Ello, 'oo's the young dook?"

"Look out," said a voice. "That's San, the--"

"Ho! 'Im with the Hirish gal to 'elp 'im tike 'is bloody barth nights?
'Oo's _he_? She's a--"

A second later Sanford knew that he had struck the man over the face
with his whip, cutting the phrase. The mare plunged and the whole crowd
congested about the bellowing cockney as Bill held Cameron back, and
huge Jansen planted a hand on Rawling's chest.

"No worry," he said genially. "Yim an' us, Boss, our job."

Varian had wedged his hawk face close to the cockney's, now purple
blotched with wrath, and Rawling waited.

"Come to the office an' get your pay. You hear? Then you clear out. If
you ain't off the property in an hour you'll be dead. You hear?"

"He ought to," muttered Ling, leading the mare away. "Dad hasn't yelled
that loud since that Dutchman dropped the kid in the--hello, it's
raining!"

"Come on home, Sonny," said Rawling, "and tell us all about it. I didn't
see the start."

But Sanford was still boiling, and the owner had recourse to his godson.
Ling told the story, unabridged, as they mounted toward the house.

"Onnie'll hear of it," sighed Rawling. "Look, there she is by the
kitchen, and that's Jennie Cameron loping 'cross lots. Neve