“Who are you to be giving orders?” demanded the man who had made the suggestion angrily and leaning forward on his rifle, “I reckon we ’uns ain’t asking for your advice or figgering on taking it either.”
Several of the younger men muttered, “That’s right—who’s he to come here ’a ordering us about.”
“I wouldn’t put it past yer that you’re turned a revenue,” went on the first speaker following up his advantage. At this an angry cry went up. The boys and Ben perceived that matters would soon reach a crisis if something were not done. Ben, however, knew how to handle these people better than his young companions imagined.
With two quick steps he was alongside the trouble-maker and seizing him in an iron grasp put his face close to his and fairly hissed in his ear:
“Look a here, ‘Red’ Mavell, one more word like that and you’re as good as dead—understand?”
The other apparently did for he sullenly muttered:
“Ain’t no use a gettin’ het up. You know the way we do these things an’ if you don’t like ’em you don’t have to stay and watch.”
During this scene Nego had stood as impassively as if carved out of wood. Indeed with his parchment-like skin and dark, slit eyes he did resemble an Oriental ivory image almost as much as a human being.
It was of course evident to him that escape was impossible. Rugged, wild-eyed moonshiners stood all about him and the women even had come out of the huts, with their timid children peeping from behind their skirts, to be onlookers at the unwonted scene. The captive retained his posture of proud defiance in the face of this. His bearing was even insolent in fact.
“Look here, mates,” went on Ben, turning suddenly to the boys, “we don’t want to have any hand in killing this here reptile—much reason as we’ve got to—and we don’t want him to be tortured, and I’ll be keelhauled if we want to keep him,” he glanced ferociously at the captive, “the only thing to do is to turn him loose.”