“But what have you done?” repeated Enoch. “And if you have been guilty of any rascality, why do you come here to tell us of it? I am sure that we are in no way interested in your affairs.”
“Ain’t you, now?” cried Barr, who seemed to be so sure of his ground that even Enoch began to be frightened. “If you ain’t interested in the matter, Brigham is, for a fact. He said he would be willing to pay liberal if that Gordon boy was sent away, so’t he wouldn’t never see him no more, and I——”
“And did you think I was in earnest when I said it?” Lester almost shouted. He began to understand what the duck-shooter was trying to get at, and his intense alarm took away all his strength and pretty near all his wits. He sat down on the Firefly’s deck and looked about him as if he were trying to make up his mind which way he could run first.
“Did I think you was in ’arnest?” repeated Barr. “Of course I did. If you wasn’t, you had no business to say what you did. I have done the work, and I want my money.”
“But what have you done?” said Enoch, again. “Where is Don Gordon now?”
“He’s on his way to Chiny,” was the astounding reply, “and he won’t come back to trouble none of you for three long years, at least.”
“Then you kidnapped him and put him aboard a vessel?” said Enoch.
“I did, for a fact.”
“You didn’t hurt him?”
“Well, as to that, I can’t say for certain,” answered Barr, reflectively. “He fought so uncommon hard that for a time it looked as though he was going to whop the pair of us, and Pete had to quiet him with a rap on the head. Pete afterward said he was sorry he teched him, for he was pluck to the back-bone, and he’d bet he was a good feller.”