Page:Cornelia Meigs-The Pirate of Jasper Peak.djvu/54

 said scornfully; “you found long ago that there was one woman not afraid of you, now you find  a boy. It is like you to believe that he would fear you as the rest do, but this time you are wrong. And you know that there is nothing that can make you so angry as to find some one you cannot terrify.”

He muttered something but did not speak aloud.

“Come,” she said to Hugh, and, “Come, Carl,” she added as she held out her hand to her small son and moved toward the door. But Jake barred the way.

“He tried to tell me that bear skin wasn’t mine,” he blustered. “He said it was Ole Peterson’s, but Peterson vows it isn't his. What do you make of that? Has he any right to call me a thief?”

Linda answered quite undisturbed.

“He is a shrewder boy than are we Swedes,” she said, “and has been quick to see the truth. Yet he is not the only one to know you for a thief.”