"I know what you mean, Web. There ain't no one that would try it quicker'n me, if I had the least chance."
"You stole a boat from one of 'em not long ago."
"But the varmint was asleep, and there was only that one. Here there's twenty of 'em at least—most likely more—and every varmint of' em is as wide awake as if he had been asleep seventeen years and a half. No," grimly added the veteran, "there ain't nothin' that would suit the varmints better than to have Sime Kenton try to steal one of their canoes from' em. The style in which they would lift his hair would be beautiful. They'd be powerful glad to give me a chance if they believed I'd try it."
"Wal," remarked Hastings, with a sigh, "it looks to me as if it's going to be the same game over again that Jim Deane and the boys had played on 'em some months ago, 'cepting there won't be half the chance there was then."
"Why not?"
"Wal, with them there war'nt nobody beside themselves and all knowed how to fight, and they did fight, too—there's no mistake. But we've got two women, a likely gal and a little girl, and of course there isn't one of us that'll knock under or run as long as they're above ground."
"Of course not; them's the sentiments of every one of us."
"When daylight comes the varmints will be on all sides of us. They can keep behind the trees and pick off one of us whenever he shows his head."
"They can do a great deal better than that," suggested Kenton.
"How?"