A sudden gleam came into those cold, steely eyes. A flash of warning not to trifle with him, it seemed. But it died out as suddenly as it had come, and in his monotonous Yankee drawl, Simon went on:
“Ther hull in an’ outs uv it is—how fur hez Chillingwuth gone?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” exclaimed Tom, who had decided to act as spokesman, and silenced the impetuous Jack by a look.
“Oh, yes, yer do, boy. Daon’t try ter gilflicker me. I’m ez smart ez a steel trap, boy, and ez quick as sixty-’leven, so da-ont rile me up. I’m askin’ yer ag’in—how fur hez Chillingworth gone?”
“He’s anchored down in the cove,” said Tom, willfully misunderstanding him.
Again that angry gleam shone in Bully Banjo’s eyes. His thin lips tightened till they were a mere slit across his gaunt visage.
“Daon’t rile me, boy,” he said, in an almost pleading voice, although Tom was swift to catch the menace behind it. “Daon’t rile me. Yer seen thet them I wants I gits. Yer seen thet when that Chink yonder walked inter yer by the crick. Speak me true, bye, an’ speak me fair, an’ yer kin go on yer way. But ef yer lie—wa-al, by Juniper, you’ll wish as you wuz dead a hundred times afore you be.”
“In any event,” said Tom boldly enough, and without a quiver in his voice, though his scalp tightened and his heart beat thick and fast at these words; “in any event, if you think you can carry out any such high-handed piece of business as this without suffering for it, you’re badly mistaken.”
Simon Lake laughed. His mirth was not pleasant to hear.
“We’re in the twentieth century, recollect,” added Tom. “There is such a thing as law and order. Seattle is not so very far away. Port Townsend, too. There are police there, and the means to make you suffer.”