"The boss knows who you are—that's enough for us."
"The boss?" questioned Blount.
"Yas, I said the boss; now hold your jaw!"
Blount caught at the word. In a flash the talk with Gantry on the veranda of the Winnebasset Club flicked into his mind.
"There is only one boss in this State," he countered coolly. "And I am very sure he hasn't given you orders to kill me."
"What's that?" demanded the spokesman.
Blount repeated his assertion, adding jocularly: "Perhaps you'd better call up headquarters and ask your boss if he wants you to kill the son of his boss."
At this the gun-holder came around the fire to stand before his prisoner.
"Say, pal—this ain't my night for kiddin', and it hadn't ort to be your'n," he remarked grimly. "The boss didn't say you was to be rubbed out—they never do. But I reckon it would save a heap o' trouble if you was rubbed out."
"On the contrary, I'm inclined to think it would make a heap of trouble—for you and your friends, and quite probably for the man or men who sent you to waylay me. But, apart from all that, you've got hold of the wrong man, as I told you a moment ago."