Bud wanted to go in and smash his guitar over the fellow's head, but Jerry's warning held him.

There were other ways, however, to help; if he must not drive off the tormentor, then he would call him away.

He ignored his bruised knuckles and plucked the guitar strings as if he held a grudge against them, and then began to sing the first song that came into his mind--one that started in a rollicky fashion.
Men came straggling up from the bunk-house before he had finished the first chorus, and squatted on their heels to listen, their cigarettes glowing like red fingertips in the dusk.

But the voice in the kitchen talked on.

Bud tried another--one of those old-time favorites, a "laughing coon" song, though he felt little enough in the mood for it.
In the middle of the first laugh he heard the kitchen door slam, and Lew's footsteps coming around the corner.