Jack laughed gently. "That's what they deserve, the blackguards!" he said. "Why do you suppose they spiked your revolver? I'll tell you. So that when they attacked you, as they fully intended to do, and would do now if we gave them the chance, you should be harmless and unable to hit them back."
It certainly did seem pretty mean, viewed in this light—a cold-blooded, premeditated, murderous kind of thing to do. The idea made me very angry. It gave me that almost intolerable longing one sometimes feels—which, at anyrate, I feel—to punch some offender's head; it is a feeling which generally assails one at helpless moments, as, for instance, when a schoolmaster (whose head cannot be punched with propriety) takes advantage of his position to bombard some wretched victim, who can utter no protest, with scathing remarks.
"What are we going to do, then?" I continued. "Of course we are not going to murder them in cold blood; but can't we punch their heads?"
Jack laughed. "Oh, it may come to that, likely enough," he said; "but what we must go for first is to disarm them. It is perfectly impossible to live near these men in any sort of comfort or security unless we first deprive them of their rifles and revolvers. That's what I want to do to-night. One or two of them will be asleep, the other watching. We must stalk them at about midnight, cover them with our revolvers, and make them 'hands up!'"
"No good covering them with my revolver," I said. "I'd better cover a pair with my rifle, and you the other fellow with your pistol. They know mine won't go off, well enough!"
"That's true," said Jack. "All right, your rifle then. We must shiver here till about midnight; you won't mind that for once."
And shiver we did for several hours, as much with excitement as with the cold of the night; for at about nine o'clock we saw the glow of a fire a mile or so away, which gave us the welcome assurance that our friends had not, at anyrate, found the treasure and departed.
I entreated Jack several times to let us be up and at them; but Jack was inexorable, and would not budge until our watches told us that midnight had come. Then Jack arose and stretched himself.
"Are you ready?" he said.
"Rather!" said I; "come on!"