Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/50

Rh "What! right before the Indian team?" asked Floyd.

"Yes; why not?" Stewart answered sharply.

He turned and talked in an undertone to Jim Hobart, and Floyd gave his attention to the game. At the end of the half, when the Indian team came over to the substitutes' bench to wrap themselves in blankets, Stewart turned to the neophytes.

"Go down into the middle of the field and do a war-dance," he commanded.

They rose obediently and started to pass out into the aisle.

"Sit down!" cried Floyd.

They hesitated; they knew that he was a member of the society, and that they were as much subject to his orders as to Stewart's. But Stewart turned upon him with his eyes flashing. "Mind your own business," he said.

Floyd caught him by the arm.

"Stewart," he said, "don't make a fool of yourself. Cool off. You neophytes, sit down."

Stewart, red with anger and with his lips trembling, looked at Floyd. Then he leaned back in his seat and nodded to the neophytes.

"Sit down," he said curtly.

After the game he let Jim Hobart conduct his Indians from the field; he himself fell back and walked silently with Floyd. Together they turned aside from the crowd into an unfrequented street.

"That ends it," Stewart said suddenly, stopping and facing Floyd. "You seem to think that what you once did for me gives you the right to rule me. You think you have only to turn on the screws. Well, you've done it, you've humiliated me, you can have that satisfaction. You've made me know that having once saved my life you look on me as somehow your property—"

"Stewart!" cried Floyd in reproach.

"Oh, it had to come," Stewart swept on; "the sooner