"I know that Maggie came near pegging out with a broken heart when her mother died, three years ago," continued Golcher, "and she is so attached to her father, brother, and sister, that she will do anything in her power to save harm coming to them."
This fact could not fail to suggest the course that had taken shape in his mind long before.
"We will capture them all; then I'll make known my terms: Maggie must agree to marry me; she will do it, too, if she makes the promise, and I'll agree to let all the rest go. I'll keep my word so far as the old man and Eva, and I guess the Aunt Peggy, is concerned; but there's two that I'll wipe out—Fred Godfrey and that Gravity Gimp.
"I may have to promise to let up on 'em, but I can fix it with Gray Panther, so they'll be accidentally killed; but I'll never feel easy till they're both underground. As for that nigger—" And taking out his pipe, he ground his teeth together, and clenched the fingers of the free hand, and then, looking up, saw Gravity Gimp, the African, standing before him.
"Good-evenin'," said the servant, bowing low, and making a salaam with his broad hand, inasmuch as he was without his hat; "I hopes I finds yer werry well dis ebenin."
Jake Golcher sprang to his feet, and his pipe dropped from his hand. It often happens that the very person of whom we are thinking turns up before us, but, although there was nothing supernatural in the appearance of the African, the renegade was startled for the moment into believing that such was the fact.
Quickly recovering, he muttered something, and sitting down again on the log, picked up his pipe, took a puff or two, and looking at the lame African, asked:
"Where did you come from? I thought you was Satan."
"Dat's purty rough on Satan; but I's Gravity Gimp, at your sarvice, and if it am all de same I'll sot down on de log beside yer, being dat I've got a tremenjus game leg."
As he spoke, Gravity limped to the fallen tree, and took his seat a short distance away, uttering a groan of pain, and nursing the limb as though his torture was great.