They kept up those tactics for most of a week. They were certainly stubborn and insolent persons, and they were fighting for big money. But the more they raved and threatened, the more at peace with myself and my conscience I felt. We were fighting for our own now, and they had established the code.
Then at last the boat came with a white flag. The spokesman politely stated that they had come to talk some business in private, and begged to be allowed to come on board.
Miss Kama was with me on deck when they climbed up the ladder. She had resumed her woman’s garb, and they stared at her in frank astonishment and admiration. She did look particularly sweet, her little cap on her curls, her sweater displaying her winsome curves of beauty.
She seemed to astonish them, I say. The next moment she astonished me. She walked into the wheel-house by my side, and was the first to speak.
“Gentlemen,” she said to the three, “you have seen with your own eyes how this poor boy has suffered. You can’t see how I have suffered as I have watched him do what he has done, but the marks are on my soul, I know. There is law in the world, and all that, and men are too apt to get angry in law when there is much money concerned. Can’t you all keep from being angry to-day, and be wise, and decide on what is right?”
They looked at one another and the spokesman stammered something about being over there to have a heart-to-heart talk.
“May I not stay?” she asked, wistfully. “I won’t say a word to bother you—I won’t move unless you start to quarrel—and then I’ll only remind you that there’s a lady present.” The queer little smile she gave them started the grins on their faces. The ice was broken.
Those men were human once more. The girl had given the magic touch to the conference.
We had not been getting anywhere at all, in the past, and we woke up and realized it as we stood there with the girl’s presence toning us down. It had been man’s bluff and bluster; they had arrived ready mad and I felt that I knew what ailed them outside of the mere money part of the thing.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “if it hadn’t been for Marcena Keedy’s tongue you would have shown a better side to us when you arrived here.” Nobody seemed ready to say anything for a moment and I went on. “I reckon he told, you that he was our partner and that we have cheated him.”