"Then," replied Mr. Hicks, while his hand slipped carelessly to the stick of stove-wood, "if you force the issue, I will say that I've seen a good many wormy trout come out of the Yellowstone but that was the worst I ever met up with."
Mr. Stott advanced belligerently.
"And you dare boast of it!"
"I'm not boasting--I'm just telling you," replied Mr. Hicks, calmly. "An Eye for an Eye, a Tooth for a Tooth, that's my motto, and your wife thought I wasn't good enough to eat at the table with her."
"You hear?" Stott turned to Wallie furiously. "He did it on purpose. I demand that you discharge this fellow!"
Mr. Hicks' fingers caressed the stove-wood while he waited Wallie's answer.
Wallie squirmed between the two of them.
"It was reprehensible, Mr. Stott, I am more distressed than I can tell you. I have no excuse to offer for Hicks' action, but the truth is, as he knows and has taken advantage of it, I cannot replace him and it is impossible to get along without a cook with so large a party."
"You will, then, not discharge him?" Stott demanded.
"I am helpless," Wallie reiterated.
Hicks grinned triumphantly.
"In that case," Mr. Stott declared in a tone which implied that a tremendous upheaval of some kind would follow his decision, "my wife and I will leave your party and continue through the Park by motor."
Wallie felt that it was useless to argue with any one so determined, so he made no effort to persuade Mr. Stott to remain, though the deflection of two more persons was a serious matter to him and Pinkey.
Without waiting to say good-bye to the others, the Stotts paid their bill and departed, walking so erect in their indignation as they started down the road toward the Lake Hotel that they seemed to lean backward.
It was not yet dark when Mr. Stott, stepping briskly and carrying his Gladstone bag, raincoat, and umbrella in a jaunty manner, came into camp announcing breezily that he had decided, upon reflection, not to "bite off his nose to spite his face." He declared that he would not let the likes of Ellery Hicks upset his plans for touring the Yellowstone, and while his wife refused to return he meant to carry out his original intention.
But the real reason for Mr. Stott's decision, as Wallie suspected from the frequency with which he had discovered him sitting upon a log in secluded spots counting his money, was that the hotel rates and motor fare were far higher then he had anticipated.
Mrs. Stott's absence did not leave the gap which she had anticipated. In fact, after the first evening her name was never mentioned, and Mr. Stott's marital ties rested so lightly upon him that a stranger would never have known they existed. He gravitated toward Miss Gaskett with a promptitude which gave rise to the suspicion that he had had his eye upon her, and Miss Gaskett responded so enthusiastically that it was a matter for gossip.