"How can we prevent him from coming with us?"
"I'll have to think about that," Jack said grimly.
Next morning Jean Paul issued out of his tent as demure and smooth-faced as a copper-coloured saint. Looking at him they were almost ready to believe that he had never left it. He did his full share of the work about camp, did it cheerfully and well. He even had the delicacy—or whatever the feeling was—to retire with his breakfast to a little distance from the others, that they might be relieved of the constraint of his company.
"He's a wonder," Jack said to Mary with a kind of admiration.
When they had finished eating, Jack spoke a word to Davy, and the two of them got a tracking line out of the baggage, a light, strong cord that Jack had included because of the thousand uses to which it lends itself. He gave the coil to Davy to carry, and they returned to Jean Paul. Jack covertly made sure that his six-shooter was loose in its case. The half-breed, having finished eating, was sitting on the ground, lighting his pipe. Jack stood grimly waiting until he got it going well. Jean Paul flipped the match away with an air of bravado, and a sidelong sneer.
"Put your hands behind you!" Jack suddenly commanded.
Jean Paul sprang up astonished. Jack drew his gun.
"Don't move again," he harshly warned him. "Put your hands behind you."
Jean Paul slowly obeyed, and Davy twisted the cord around his wrists.
"Wat you do?" Jean Paul protested, with an eye on the gun and an admirable air of astonished innocence. "I your man, me. I all time work for you. You always moch bad to me. No believe no'ting."