Blackstaffe shrugged his shoulders.
“It is their way,” he replied. “You cannot change it. Ware must have noticed what they were about, and he took advantage of it. But I don't think any of the others will go that way.”
“The boy Cotter is in here,” said Braxton Wyatt, tapping the side of a small hut. “Let's go in and see him.”
“Good enough,” said Blackstaffe. “But we mustn't let him know that Hyde has escaped.”
Paul, also bound hand and foot, was lying on an old wolfskin. He, too, was pale and thin-the strict confinement had told upon him heavily-but Paul's spirit could never be daunted. He looked at the two renegades with hatred and contempt.
“Well, you're in a fine fix,” said Wyatt sneeringly. “We just came in to tell you that we took Henry Ware last night.”
Paul looked him straight and long in the eye, and he knew that the renegade was lying.
“I know better,” he said.
“Then we will get him,” said Wyatt, abandoning the lie, “and all of you will die at the stake.”
“You, will not get him,” said Paul defiantly, “and as for the rest of us dying at the stake, that's to be seen. I know this: Timmendiquas considers us of value, to be traded or exchanged, and he's too smart a man to destroy what he regards as his own property. Besides, we may escape. I don't want to boast, Braxton Wyatt, but you know that we're hard to hold.”