"I accept your apology," said Mosely; "it's lucky you made it. Me and my friend don't stand no insults. We don't take no back talk. We're bad men when we get into a scrimmage—eh, Tom?"
"I don't doubt your word in the least," said Dewey. "It gives me pleasure to assent cordially to the description you give of yourselves."
Tom Hadley, who was rather obtuse, took this as a compliment, but Mosely was not altogether clear whether Dewey was not chaffing them. "That sounds all right," said he, suspiciously, "if you mean it."
"Oh, set your mind quite at rest on that subject, Bill, if that is your name. You may be sure that I mean everything I say."
"Then you won't give us a hint where to dig?"
"I am sorry to disoblige you, but I really couldn't."
"Do you hear that, Ben?" said Jake Bradley, his mouth distended with a grin. "Dick's chaffin' them scoundrels, and they can't see it. It looks as if they was huntin' for the gold-dust. They haven't found anything yet, and they haven't hurt Dick, or he wouldn't talk as cool as he does."
There was a brief conference, and then the first movement was made by the besieging-party.
Ki Sing, by Bradley's direction, walked to the entrance of the hut and looked placidly in.
As Mosely looked up he saw the Chinaman's face looking like a full moon, and for an instant he was stupefied. He could not conceive how his victim could have escaped from his captivity.