"That couldn't be helped, Harkness," the scout master told him. "Your wolves had broken out, and you couldn't expect to ever trap many of them again, at the best. They came at us like fury, and we had to defend ourselves, or we'd have been torn to pieces like a flash. And that's why this happened. We weren't out hunting for trouble; but you've lost you pack on account of a weak place in your pen." "But ain't yuh meanin' tuh pay me anything fo' shootin' up my pets thisaways?" Harkness demanded, trying to look fierce, though keeping an eye on Jack with his ready gun. Jimmy laughed out very loud. "Would you be after hearing the nerve of him, fellers?" he exclaimed in derision. 'Tis meself that thinks it sounds like adding insult to injury. After lettin' the pack loose to make a square meal from us, then askin' pay, because we had to fight to save our precious lives. 'Tis a rare joke, it is--not on your tintype, Mister Harkness. Our principle is 'millions for defense, not a plunk for tribute.' So put that in your pipe and smoke it." "You've got a lot of assurance, Harkness," Ned told him, severely, "to think of asking such a thing. Why, the boot is on the other foot, and we ought to be demanding that you pay us back for all the ammunition it took to clean up your pack for you. I'm half inclined to believe we could prosecute you for keeping such a lot of savage animals. You'd be wise to go mighty slow about trying to make trouble for any of us. We might take a notion to run you in." The man's whole demeanor changed when he discovered that his bluster was not going to alarm the scouts. "I hopes now," he went on to say in a whining tone, "thet yuh won't keep me from taking the pelts off my poor pets. They's worth sumpin' tuh me, likewise the scalps o' the same. I been bankin' on thet money this long time. Hit's all I got tuh see me through the winter. Don't be too hard on me, gents. I'm out o' the wolf raisin' line fo' keeps, arter this bust-up." Ned consulted with his chums for a minute or two and then turned again to the intruder. "Here's what we propose to have you do, Harkness," he remarked, with such an air of finality that the man knew he must yield to circumstances, "hand over that gun of yours to me; you'll get it again in the morning, when we break camp. Then lie down and go to sleep. One of us will be on the watch all the time, so if you try any monkey-doodle business, as Jimmy here would call it, better go slow, or something will happen. Do you understand that, Harkness?" The man's ugly face grew as black as a thunder cloud, and then with an effort he tried to grin, though it only added to his unsavory appearance. "Thar be times w'en a feller has tuh eat crow an' I reckons as how this be sech a time fo' me, younker," he said, slowly. "Oh! I hain't no 'jections tuh stayin' hyar alongside the fire; but I hopes as how yuh'll let me hev my pelts w'en mo'nin' comes 'long."