"Then it wa'n't a plant? 'Twa'n't fixed up atween you boys an' her?"
"It was her own idea--an idea so strong that it has taken possession of her poor wandering wits altogether."
"Is that so?" He moistened his lips. "And you--ye've come up here to ask me to go down there, into that p'isonous Paradise, because a little girl who ain't nothin' to me wants to give me three dollars and a half?"
"If you get there in time it may save her life."
"An' s'pose I lose mine--hey?"
I shrugged my shoulders. He stared at me as if I were a strange animal, clicking his teeth and twisting his fingers.
"Look ye here," he burst out, angrily, with a curious note of surprise and petulance in his voice, "you an' that brother o' yours know me, old Pap Spooner, purty doggoned well. Hev ye heard anyone ever speak a good word fer me?"
"No one except--the schoolmarm."
"An' what did she say?"
"She reckoned you must have thought the world of your own little girl."