Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/333

Rh Bill whistled slowly.

"But I don't believe Ken had a thing to do with it," he blurted, "I like that kid."

"Jim Paige doesn't shoot his mouth off at random," Corbell pointed out, "especially a thing like this. He was pretty friendly with young Boyd, too."

"I must say I like his cheek, chumming about with us all this fashion—and with the Colonel, too, for that matter," observed Ravenscroft.

"In all probability he sees nothing out of the way in it," replied Corbell, bitterly. "It's just business with that sort. Probably he'd be surprised to know that anybody could see anything to object to!"

"Well, he's going to know pretty plain that I see something to object to!" stated Frank Moore, with great positiveness.

"Here he comes now," said Big Bill.

Kenneth appeared in the doorway. The letter had been very satisfactory, and therefore he was feeling, and looking, particularly cheerful. "Well, where you decided to shoot to-morrow?" he called, as he entered the room.

There was no response. Kenneth looked about in surprise. The men were sitting in constraint, and were looking at him.

"What's up?" demanded Kenneth with a slight laugh. "You look solemn."

"Boyd," began Corbell, crisply, "I have known you off and on for some time in rather a casual fashion, and have always liked you. But neither I nor my friends have ever had occasion to inquire into your standards. We have assumed them to be the same as ours. We have received you as one of us on that basis."

Kenneth looked from one to the other puzzled. The smile had faded from his lips, but lingered in the corners of his mouth, ready to come back if it only proved to be another of the typical elaborate hoaxes. "But there are some things that, according to our standards, no decent man would do."