bluntly.

The boy hesitated, seeking the inevitable defenses of the weak
pitted against the strong. "I've been teaching my hounds to hunt
rabbits," he replied, after a moment. "Zebbadee was with me."

"So you were too sick to start for school this morning, eh?"
pursued Fletcher, hurt and angry. "Only well enough to go
traipsing through the bushes after a pack of brutes?"

"I had a headache, but it got better. May I go up now to wash my
hands?"

For an instant Fletcher regarded him in a brooding silence; then,
with that remorseless cruelty which is the strangest
manifestation of wounded love, he loosened upon the boy's head
all the violence of his smothered wrath.

"You'll do nothing of the kind! I ain't done with you yet, and
when I am I reckon you will know it. Mark my words, if you warn't
such a girlish looking chap I'd take my horsewhip to your
shoulders in a jiffy. So this is the return I get, is it, for all
my trouble with you since the day you were born! Tricks and lies
are all the reward I'm to expect, I reckon. Well, you'll learn--
once for all, now--that when you undertake to fool me it's a
clear waste of time. I've found out whar you've been to-day, and
I know you've been sneaking across the county with that darn
Blake!"

The boy looked at him steadily, first with speechless terror,