“‘Yes, sir,’ says Nate, polite; ’in about two shakes of a heifer’s tail.’

“He started for Augustus, and Gus started for the door.  I guess Olivia might have interfered, but just then the professor keels over in a kind of faint and she had to tend to him.  Gus darts out of the door with Nate after him.  Scudder reached the beach just as his nephew was shovin’ off in the boat, bound for the mainland.

“‘Consarn your empty head!’ Nate yelled after him.  ’See what you get by not mindin’ me, don’t you?  I’m runnin’ things on this island after this.  I’m boss here; understand?  When you’re ready to sign a paper deedin’ over ha’f that money your wife’s goin’ to get to me and Huldy Ann, maybe I’ll let you come back.  And perhaps then I’ll square things for you with Dixland.  But if you dare to set foot on these premises until then I’ll murder you; I’ll drown you; I’ll cut you up for bait; I’ll feed you to the dog.’

“He sculled off, his oars rattlin’ ‘Hark from the tomb’ in the rowlocks.  He b’lieved Nate meant it all.  Oh, Scudder had him trained all right.”

CHAPTER VII

CAPTAIN SOL DECIDES TO MOVE

“Trust Nate for that,” interrupted Wingate.  “He’s just as much a born bully as he is a cheat and a skinflint.”

“Yup,” went on Captain Sol.  “Well, when Nate got back to the house the professor was alone in the chair, lookin’ sick and weak.  Olivia was up in her room havin’ a cryin’ fit.  Nate got the old man to bed, made him some clam soup and hot tea, and fetched and carried for him like he was a baby.  The professor’s talk was mainly about the ungrateful desertion, as he called it, of his assistant.

“‘Keep him away from this island,’ he says.  ’If he comes, I shall commit murder; I know it.’

“Scudder promised that Augustus shouldn’t come back.  The professor wanted guard kept night and day.  Nate said he didn’t know’s he could afford so much time, and Dixland doubled his wages on the spot.  So Nate agreed to stand double watches, made him comfort’ble for the night, and left him.

“Olivia didn’t come downstairs again.  She didn’t seem to want any supper, but Nate did and had it, a good one.  Galileo, the cat, came yowlin’ around, and Nate kicked him under the sofy.  Phillips Brooks was howlin’ starvation in the woodshed, and Scudder let him howl.  If he starved to death Nate wouldn’t put no flowers on his grave.  Take it altogether, he was havin’ a fairly good time.

“And when, later on, he set alone up in his room over the kitchen, he begun to have a better one.  Prospects looked good.  Maybe old Dixland would disown his niece.  If he did, Nate figgered he was as healthy a candidate for adoption as anybody.  And Augustus would have to come to terms or stay single.  That is, unless him and Olivia got married on nothin’ a week, paid yearly.  Nate guessed Huldy Ann would think he’d managed pretty well.