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It was very cold and icy draughts crept in, but they were undisturbed until daybreak, when there was a cry outside: "Here's Mitcham wanting to talk to you!" A weary man, white with snow, entered and looked eagerly round the shack. "I've come for those cases," he said, pointing to the pile. "What right have you to them?" Kermode inquired. "What right?" cried the other.
He was wrong, and if you had not struck him I would have licked him myself; but as you have done so, you had better put up with a thrashing, and have done with it." "I should think so, indeed!" Tom said disdainfully. "I may get a licking; I dare say I shall; but it won't be all on one side. Look here, Mitcham, we will have it out to-morrow, on the ramparts behind the barracks.
"You declare the man Mitcham claimed this liquor as his property?" Sergeant Inglis asked. "He said he'd bought it. We're ready to swear to that, and we can give you the names of several more who heard him." "I'll take them down. Where's Mitcham?" They told him and he closed his notebook. "You may be sent for from Edmonton later.
Tom spoke so good-temperedly that there was a general feeling in his favor, and several of them who had before thought with Mitcham, that the new-comers were not inclined to be sociable, felt that they had been mistaken. There was, however, a general feeling of surprise and amusement at the idea of two boys voluntarily taking lessons in Spanish.
"The trouble is that if we leave the shack without a guard, Mitcham will steal his liquor back," declared one. "I think I had better see Mr. Morgan," Kermode suggested, and they let him go. The young engineer he interviewed listened with a thoughtful air to the request that several of the workmen should be given a day's leave.
"Weel," said the leader, "hae ye a plan?" Kermode lighted his pipe and after a few moments answered thoughtfully: "I hear that Mitcham, Long Bill, and Libby will take the trail to-morrow with Bill's team and sled he's laid off work because of the snow.
In the smacks many lads from the workhouse schools are apprenticed, and some of the smartest skippers in England come originally from Mitcham or Sutton. Jim Billings was a workhouse boy when he first went to sea, and he sometimes ran up to London after his eight weeks' trips were over. When I first cast eyes on Jim I said quite involuntarily, "Bob Travers, by the living man!"
"Hold your tongue, Mitcham, or I'll pull your ears for you," Corporal Skinner said: but his speech was cut short by Tom's putting one hand on the barrack table, vaulting across it, and striking Mitcham a heavy blow between the eyes. There was a cry of "a fight!" among the boys, but the men interfered at once.
Mitcham, however, who was a surly-tempered young fellow, and who was jealous of the progress which the boys were making, and of the general liking with which they seemed to be regarded, said, "I believe that's only an excuse for getting away from us." "Do you mean to say that you think that I am telling a lie?" Tom asked quietly. "Yes, if you put it in that way, young 'un," Mitcham said.
"Look here, Mitcham, you can't see, and I can hardly stand. I think we have both done enough. We neither of us can give in, well because because I am a gentleman, you because you are bigger than I am; so let's shake hands, and say no more about it." Mitcham hesitated an instant, and then held out his hand. "You are a good fellow, Scudamore, and there's my hand; but you have licked me fairly.
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