"Well," says I, "I cal'late we'd better shorten sail and haul out of the race, for a spell, anyhow. At any rate we'd better clear out of this kitchen and leave that chef and the rest to get the dinner. I know it's our stuff that'll go to make that dinner, but I don't see's we can help it. A few dollars more won't break us more'n we're cracked already."
But he waved his hand for me to stop. "No question of a few dollars is in it. It's no use," he says, solemn; "you're too late. The Frenchman's quit."
"Quit?" says I.
"Um-hm," says he. "Bill Bangs told him that we fellers had took charge of this road-house and he and the rest of the kitchen help quit right then and there. They're out in the barn now, holdin' counsel of war, I shouldn't wonder. Bill seems to think he's done a great piece of work, but I don't."
I didn't either; and, after I'd hot-footed it to the barn and tried to pump some reason and sense into that chef and his gang, I was surer of it than ever. They wouldn't listen to reason, not from us. They wanted to see the boss, meanin' Mr. Frank. He was the one that had hired 'em and they wouldn't have anything to say to anybody else.
I come back to the kitchen and found the boys all settin' round lookin' pretty solemn. My joke about the jail wa'n't half so funny as it had been. Bill Bangs, who'd been the most savage outlaw of us all, was the meekest now.
"Say, Cap'n," he says to me, nervous like, "hadn't we better clear out and go home? I don't want to see them auto people when they get here. And—and I'm scared that that stewardess has gone after the sheriff."
"I presume likely that's just where she's gone," says I.
"Wh-what'll we do?" says he.
"Don't know," says I. "But I do know that the time for backin' out is past and gone. We started out to be pirates and now it's too late to haul down the skull and cross-bones. We've got to stand by our guns and fight to the finish, that's all I see. If the rest of you have got anything better to offer, I, for one, would be mighty glad to hear it."