Jim only needed that one glance, and then he gritted his teeth as he observed:
“Oh! twar him, all right, Eli; I knowed it.”
“Wow! and again I say, wow! this here is sure getting mighty interesting!” muttered Giraffe, shuffling uneasily from one foot to the other; while Bumpus, filled with a sudden alarm, started back into the camp, to arm himself with his new gun.
“Do you mean Old Cale Martin?” demanded Thad.
“None other,” answered Jim, moodily.
“Then he must have seen you, Jim, sitting here?” the patrol leader went on.
“He shore did,” replied the short guide.
“And amused himself covering you with his gun, just as if to say that he could put a bullet in you, if so be he wanted; but he didn’t want to, did he Jim?
“Reckon he didn’t, sir,” the other ventured. “Yuh see, he ain’t jest thet mad at me, so’s tuh wanter kill me; jest sez as haow I gotter keep away from whar he camps, yuh know.”
“Sill, he said he meant to pin your ears to a tree, if he caught you up here; those were about the words your guide friend, Hen Parry, used, weren’t they, Jim?”