HELD AT BAY.
"Don't move, Aleck!" said Thad, instantly, and he raised his voice
enough, to purposely let the three men hear what he said.
Of course the boy did not budge. Perhaps he even gave Kracker back
look for look, only that there may have been a smile of contempt upon
his boyish face.
"Don't you hear what I say, come here!" roared the colonel.
"He hears you all right, but he feels quite satisfied to stay where he
is," said Thad, in a cool tone.
The other turned those blazing eyes on the speaker.
"Who asked you to put your finger in my business?" he demanded, harshly.
"I'm not. It's you who keeps on meddling with things that concern this
boy and his mother only. I suppose you are Colonel Kracker?" Thad went
on.
"That's my name, and anybody who knows me would tell you that you're
doing the most foolish thing in all your life, when you try to
interfere with any affair on which I've set my heart. I want that boy
to come to me!" and he shook his fat finger threateningly toward Aleck
as he said this.
"Then you'll have to take it out in wanting, let me tell you;" replied
the patrol leader, "for he belongs in this camp of Boy Scouts; and
we're going to stand back of him."
If Thad was excited he certainly did not seem to be so; in fact
Giraffe wondered how in the world he could command his voice so well,
and speak so calmly, when on his part he was fairly shivering with the
nervous tension.
"What's that you say?" shouted the big man, bristling all over with
rage until he seemed to swell up larger than ever. "Why, you little
imp, d'ye know what I've a good notion to do with you for this
insulting talk?"
"I don't know, and neither do I care," replied Thad, "but there's one
thing I do think _you_ ought to know."
"Oh! you do, eh? What might that be?" demanded Kracker, sneeringly.
"Turn your head a little to the left, and you'll see a pile of rocks,"
the scoutmaster went on. "Now, look up on top of that pile, and you'll
see a young fellow on one knee, holding a big rifle straight on you.
That's one of our chums. He's from the State of Maine, where they teach
boys to be able to hit a leaping deer straight in the heart every shot.
Try and take just three steps this way, if you want to test his skill
with the rifle. Or any one of you start to raising a gun; and my word
for it you'll never know what hit you. Get that, Kracker?"
Evidently the big man saw Allan kneeling there, and holding his gun
leveled. The sight did not give him any too much enjoyment, either,
judging from the way some of the color faded from his face. He
spluttered quite as much as before, but he had lost a good part of his
make-believe courage. In fact, Thad believed he had the big bully on
the run; and he meant to press his advantage.
"If I don't get him this time, I will later on," said Kracker, giving
Aleck a look of intense hatred.
"Don't you believe it," declared the scoutmaster, cheerfully. "We're
going to see him through, and if it's necessary, we'll find a way of
sending word to the fort, and bringing a bunch of hard-riding
cavalrymen here to chase you out of the mountains. And just remember,
Colonel Kracker, there are eleven of us, all told, well armed, and
knowing how to take care of ourselves. We're no city greenhorns,
either, but scouts who have had a whole lot of experience in hard
places. Now, if you know what is good for you, keep away from our
camps, wherever they may be. Our guide, Toby Smathers, who knows you
like a book, says that lots of good people would throw up their hats
and cheer, if they heard you'd crossed over the line. You understand
what I'm saying, I guess, don't you?"
"You're doing a fool play, young feller, believe me," spoke up the man
called Waffles, thinking it was up to him to stick in his oar. "They
ain't many men as would dar' talk to the kunnel like you done. Better
hand the boy over to him; he's his uncle, and has a right to take
charge of him."
"That's a lie!" burst out Aleck, angrily. "He came around our home,
and tried every which way to get mother to just tell him what she knew
about the mine, promising all sorts of shares if only she'd trust him;
but since she didn't know a single thing about where it lay, and
wouldn't believe him on oath, either, course she didn't make any
arrangement. But he ain't any relation of mine."
"It wouldn't make any difference if he was, Aleck; when you say you
don't want anything to do with Kracker, that settles it," and Thad all
this while kept his eyes fixed on the big man, because he believed
the other to be just full of treachery and all kinds of trickery, so
that he would be ready to do something desperate if only he thought he
could take the young scoutmaster by surprise, and off his guard.
"You don't understand the matter at all," complained the big man, with
something like a whine in his gruff voice now, showing that he was
pretty nearly cowed.
"How is that?" demanded the other, instantly.
"I'm meaning to be his friend, and the friend, of his folks," Kracker
continued.
"Funny way you have of showing your friendly feelings, then, I must
say," declared Thad, with scorn in his voice; "making him a prisoner,
trying to force him to give up a secret you choose to think he
carries; and when he refuses to take you at your word, putting him
there on that ledge, to starve, or face a horrible death in perhaps
falling down a couple of hundred feet."
Kracker looked a little confused, but it was only a flash in the pan.
Such a thing as shame was foreign to his nature. For years he had been
used to browbeating almost every person with whom he had had dealings.
The fact that first of all a mere slip of a woman had dared defy him,
and then her boy did the same, nettled him beyond description; and he
had arrived at desperate measures at the time Aleck, so unfortunately
for the boy, fell into his hands.
And now it galled Kracker to see how he and his two helpers were being
actually held up by a parcel of half grown lads. Why, it would seem as
though some mockery of fate had taken hold of his fortunes, and was
finding keen pleasure in adding to his humiliation.
He would have liked to rush upon these cool boyish customers, and to
have trampled them under foot, as he had possibly done many men in
times past, when he was less huge in his proportions, and could get
around better. But somehow he did not dare attempt it.
Perhaps it was the display of weapons that awed him; and yet Colonel
Kracker was accustomed to seeing such things, and knew how to take
them at their true value. Then it may have been the manner of the
spokesman of the little party that had so depressing an effect upon
the bully. Why, what was the world coming to, when mere boys began to
hold the whip hand, and shape things as they pleased?
He started to talk, but spluttered so much he could not make
intelligible sounds. And his round moon face had taken on a deep red
hue again, until it bordered on the purple. Thad, who had some
knowledge of medicine, as we have seen on numerous occasions, really
began to wonder whether the bulky man might not be getting perilously
near the border line, and taking chances with a sudden attack of
apoplexy, or else something else along those lines.
Once or twice Thad had seen something move back of the three men. He
dared not take his eyes off them long enough to look carefully, and at
first could not decide whether it was a prowling wolf, bold enough to
come thus near the camp in broad daylight; or a human being.
He even suspected at one moment that possibly the invaders might have
been in greater numbers than any of the scouts dreamed; and that some
of them were even then creeping around, with the idea of turning the
tables on the boys by a sudden coup.
But that idea went glimmering, when he contemplated the utter
impossibility of any foe crawling across the bare and open stretch of
rock extending between their camp, and the foot of the rise.
It certainly could never be done; and with the Maine boy keeping watch
on things from his eyrie amid the piled-up rocks.
Then what?
Why, to be sure, it must be the Fox. The young Crow had vanished, Thad
remembered, at the approach of the trio of prospectors. Just where he
had gone the patrol leader had neither known, nor cared, at the time.
He seemed to have some reason for fearing either Kracker, or one of
the two lesser rascals with him; and appeared desirous of keeping out
of their sight.
Thad also remembered that the Indian boy possessed a gun. He only
hoped he would not do anything rash; but then he had been present when
the scoutmaster spoke to those under him; saying that as members of
the great organization that made for peace, they must not use their
firearms unless as a very last resort; and then only to cripple their
enemies. The Crow had nodded his head with the rest when Thad asked
for this assurance; and surely an Indian keeps his word.
There, once again his head poked up into view, and this time so close
to the men that Thad saw the Fox had been stealthily creeping nearer
all the time.
Did he have some object in his movements, or were they caused simply
by curiosity to see how close he could get, unobserved, to the one he
seemed to fear?
Seeing that Kracker was too furious to even control his voice, the
shorter fellow, whom Thad took to be Waffles, again put in his talk.
"It's plain to be seen you critters don't know the kunnel," he
observed, bitterly, just as though he himself had had a long
experience, and knew what it meant to stir up that vile temper too
far. "He never gives a thing up. He's jest like a bulldog that gits a
grip. Ye may chase us off this time; but we'll stick like a plaster;
and in the end git what we wants. We allers does."
"Oh! you don't say?" remarked the scoutmaster, with cutting emphasis;
"well, the chances are the lot of you will get what you've been richly
deserving a long time back, if you keep on meddling with our affairs.
And now, suppose you skip out. We couldn't come to any agreement if we
talked an hour. And we have some other things we want to do. Take your
fat friend away, Waffles; he's liable to explode before long, unless
you do."
Amazed at the cool defiance of the boy, the man called Waffles
mechanically started to obey. But before they had taken half a dozen
steps backward, Thad heard a strange, hissing sound that he could not
understand. The next instant, to his astonishment, he saw Waffles
pulled over backwards, his feet sprawling awkwardly. His calls for
help were half muffled, and for a very good reason; since he was being
partly choked by the loop of rope which the young Crow Indian had
thrown over his head with so much dexterity, and then jerked tight.