“What?” said Van drawlingly, “refuse to eat Algy’s confections?—­a crowd like that?  By all the culinary gods of Worcestershire and mustard, they’ll eat out of Algy’s hand.”

He dived inside the tent, caught up his gun, and was strapping it on before Mrs. Dick could catch her breath to utter a word of her wrath.

“Well,” said Gettysburg dubiously, “I hate trouble on an empty stomach, but——­”

“You stay in camp till you hear the dinner bell,” Van interrupted.  “This game is mine and Mrs. Dick’s.  You’ll get there in time for dessert.”

He did not wait for Mrs. Dick.  He started at a pace that none could follow.  Mrs. Dick began to run at his heels, calling instructions as she went.

“Be careful of the crock’ry, Van!  The stove’s bran’-new!  I’d hate to have you break the chairs!  And don’t forgit Miss Kent!”

Old Billy Stitts had remained with the others at the camp.

“Ain’t she the female woman?” he said.  “Ain’t she just about it?”

No one answered.  The three old cronies were watching Van as he went.

Van, for his part, heard nothing of what Mrs. Dick was saying, except the name “Miss Kent.”  He had not forgotten for a moment that Beth was at the seat of war, or that he would perhaps be wiser by far never to behold her again.  He was speeding there despite all he felt at what she had done, for she might be involved in trouble at the house, and—­at least she was a woman.

He arrived in the midst of a newly concerted plan on the part of lodgers and strangers combined to smoke Algy out of the kitchen.  They had broken windows, overturned the furniture, and worked up a lively humor.  Algy had exhausted his supply of hot water, but not his supply of language.  It seemed as if the stream of Oriental invective being poured through the walls of the building might have withered almost anything extant.  But Goldite whisky had failed on his besiegers earlier and their vitals were proof against attack.

Van arrived among them abruptly.

“What’s all this pillow-fight about?” he demanded in a voice that all could hear.  “Which one of you fellows is it that’s forgotten he’s a man?  Who’s looking for trouble with my Chinese cook and Mrs. Dick?”

He boded no good to any man sufficiently hardy to argue the matter to a finish.  The attackers lost heart as they faced about and found him there ready for action.  From a half-open window above the scene Beth was watching all that was done.

A spokesman for the lodgers found his voice.

“Well, we ain’t a-goin’ to stay in no doggone house with a chink shoved in fer a cook.”

Van nodded:  “Have you ever tried Algy’s cooking?”

“No, we ain’t!  And we ain’t a-goin’ to, neither!”

The others murmured their assent.