Page:Ralph Paine--The Steam-Shovel Man.djvu/115

 "Yes, but I don't need him just now," stammered Walter, trying to brazen it out. "Another time will do just as well, thank you. I must be going."

"Wait a minute," growled the soldier of fortune, and he grasped Walter's left arm with a grip of iron. "I have seen you at Balboa this afternoon, on the wharf, on the Chilean steamer, on the train. Are you not old enough to mind your own business?"

Not yet recovered from the battering effects of the landslide, Walter lacked his normal strength and agility, and his disabled arm made him as helpless as a child. He dared not try to wrench himself free lest it be injured afresh in the tussle.

"You can't scare me with your bluffs," he angrily retorted. "What right have you to ask my business?"

"We will discuss that. And if you are not willing to talk, I may have to hold you by the right arm."

Walter winced at this and looked up and down the street. Brown, naked children were playing in the gutters. Fighting-cocks were tethered