“Beats it! I should say so. I thought that was about the limit of queer adventures, but this is an odder one still.”
“How a sick man could have gone through all that Pod has, I can’t imagine,” said Tom.
“And he’s pretty sick, too, I guess,” commented Jack. “Well, let’s get ahead with our wood chopping and go back and find out what Joe has learned.”
In the meantime old Joe was almost equally at a loss. He needed time to adjust himself to circumstances so utterly different from those that he had imagined would await them at the end of the long trail. At last, however, he found words:
“Say you, Pod, or what’ev’ yo’ name ees,” he began, “you know what for me, Joe Picquet, an’ zee two garçons come here, eh?”
“I kin guess,” was the response, accompanied by a mild smile.
Old Joe smoked furiously. Here was a man he had come prepared to fight over the stolen skins, and the man smiled at him.
“Ah ha! You can guess!” he burst out at last. “You bet my life you guess. You guess bien dat you one beeg teef, eh? You guess dat? Boosh!”
There was no answer from the man lying under the shabby skin rug.
Old Joe began to find his task becoming more and more difficult. If only the man would say something, make some aggressive move, he would have no difficulty in letting loose his long bottled-up rage. But as it was, he felt almost as helpless as the recumbent figure on the ground.