Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/316

 Then they gave it up, and bought out the slender stock of canned goods and biscuits from the shelves of the general store.

They messed in the baggage-room and they swallowed their scanty portions to the tune of "Die Wacht am Rhein," bellowed out by a strong and sonorous voice, through the partition, on the other side of which, laid out in tempting confusion, as they were painfully aware, was plenty.

What they had, however, did little more than whet their appetites, and by three o'clock some of the men were talking of carrying the position by storm, helping themselves, and doing a few fancy stunts with Dutchy.

"We can't have any row," said Thornley, pulling at his mustache and staring at MacDonald. "What had we better do? The boys'll be pulling the old shack down around his ears. He'll fight like blazes, and some one'll get hurt. And then the company 'll want to know what's what. Say, the old geeser has got us where he wants us, sure—eh, what?"

MacDonald nodded.

"I'll tell you what it is," Thornley went on impressively, "there's some one besides Dutchy in this. They've been giving him a steer, and I'd give a few to know who it is. It's mighty queer Dutchy would wake up so suddenly to the fact that he was a joke. Then, there isn't enough to that rebate josh to make him so sore. Some one's been stringing him good and plenty. What had we better do?"