“Oh, give us a rest or I’ll gag you,” replied Dick Garrett. “The matter of a man more or less in the world ain’t going to shake it to its center, you bet, and when I say you’ve got to go under, then you go.”
“Have your way, then, murderous wretch,” cried the brave man, drawing himself up proudly. “I will not beg for my life from such as you, and am ready to die, if my time has come, as bravely as another. Do your worst.”
Sadie by this time began to comprehend the danger in which her father stood, and would have come to him, but she was forced back by one of the rough men who wore the Indian garb, but who could not conceal a certain flat-boat swagger which betrayed him.
“He crows loud, boys, don’t he?” said Garrett; “mighty loud for a bird of his feather that’s only got three minnits to live. Keep the gal away; she ain’t got leave to die yet.”
“Let me go to my father,” pleaded Sadie. “Oh, sir, you will not kill him for a single hasty word?”
“I rather think I shall,” replied Garrett, as cool and composed as if talking of any ordinary event. “The man’s got to go. I don’t advertise to be a saint, and when a man runs ag’inst me and calls me a murderer, I reckon it’s about time for him to pass in his chips. I’m a peaceable man—I will have peace, or a fight.”
This strange man was dreadfully in earnest. Human life was to him a thing of no price—we might lose it to-day or to-morrow, of we might live a hundred years—a small matter, not to be taken into account. He had no objections to killing a man, and if he had stood in his way, in any manner, it became a duty to put him aside.
They were approaching the snag, and the desperado was about to order the prisoner to be thrown into the water, when the boatmen were suddenly thrust aside, and Minneoba, holding her bow in her hand, darted forward and leveled an arrow at his breast.
“Look, white man,” she cried, “Minneoba is the daughter of Black-Hawk, and she can not lie; if you do harm to the good white man, I will send an arrow through your heart.”
“Why, you cat!” hissed Dick Garrett, turning upon her with a devilish look. “Stand out of the way.”