“Who is Pedro Mendez?”
“Oh, he’s—never you mind who he is. See here, young feller, you’s a axin’ too many questions.”
“No, ’tain’t no use. I’ve got to take my medicine.”
[Page 225.]
“Not too many for your good if you have sense enough to take my advice. Listen to me! You know a great deal more about this lawless business than you pretend. You know enough to make you a very valuable witness. If you choose to help the revenue people in getting at the bottom of it and breaking it up, they’re sure to let you off very easily, and as for killing you, the people in the thing will have enough to do in looking out for themselves without bothering about that after they get out of jail.”
Tom explained and elaborated this point, and at last the lame man began to see hope ahead for himself.
“Will they make a certain sure promise to let me off if I tell all I know?” he asked.
“No. They can’t do that, for if they did your testimony would be worthless. But they always do let state’s witnesses off easily, and in such a case as this they’re sure to do so. You can be very easy about that.”
“An’ they’d bear down all the harder on the cap’n when they found out he was one o’ the big managers o’ the game, wouldn’t they?”