When he stepped off the porch, afterward, intending to go
around the way he had come in order to enter the house, he heard a
voice above him, and turned to see Dade, his head sticking out of an
upstairs window, his hair in disorder, his eyes bulging, a forty-five
gleaming in his hand. Back of him, his head over Dade's shoulder,
stood Malcolm, and Bob's thin face showed between the two.
At another window, one of the front ones, was Betty. Of the four who
were watching him, Betty seemed the least excited; it seemed to Calumet
as he looked at her that there was some amusement in her eyes.
"Lordy!" said Dade as Calumet looked up at him, "how you scairt me!
Was it you shootin'? An' what in thunder was you shootin' _at_?"
"A snake," said Calumet in a voice loud enough for Betty to hear.
"A snake! Holy smoke!" growled Dade in disgust. "Wakin' people up at
this time of the night because you wanted to shoot at a measly snake.
Tomorrow we'll lay off for an hour or so an' I'll take you where you
can shoot 'em to your heart's content. But, for the love of Pete, quit
shootin' at 'em when a guy's asleep."
Calumet looked up sardonically, not at Dade, but at Betty. "Was you
all asleep?" he inquired in a voice of cold mockery. Even at that
distance he saw Betty redden, and he laughed shortly.
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