Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/370

 “Ye’ll do mighty well to pay fer yer own debts, ye black-hearted skunk!” shouted Abner. “Of course I dogged ye from them. Hi, ye fellers. D’ye know I’ve had this poor fool on the string all yesterday afternoon and all night. If I hadn’t hurt my ankle I’d be fooling him now. And me an old man with no weapon. That’s the kind of a cur he is. He couldn’t even catch me. Bah! ye a woodsman? Why, ye tanned thief, ye couldn’t find Rangeley plantation ’less ye was led to it.”

The men laughed at Abner’s ridicule, but the half-breed bit his lips till they bled. Then he smiled fiendishly and said, “I bring boys here. I make you say good things about Big Nick. I make you say anything I ask.”

“Say, if that ain’t the Injun of it,” admired Pete. “He’s going to torture the kids till the old feller prays to him.”

“I won’t stand for that,” muttered Ben. “Nothing like that. We’re in bad enough without any extries. Fer my part I don’t care to have them younkers brought here. I left them alive and well, and well supplied with provisions. Guess we’ll call it quits as far as we’re concerned.”

“Ye miserable hounds! ye’re going to send that black devil back there to murder ’em!”