The half-breed considered the problem for a short space, his crafty gaze darting here and there around the room. In spite of his host’s assertion to the contrary, he was sure that the old man was not telling the truth. He walked into the kitchen and came back, shaking his head. He scrambled up to the loft, where Dick heard him prowling around, muttering to himself. He reappeared, at length, carrying a thick woolen blanket, which he had taken from the girl’s bed. Producing a hunting knife, he cut this into strips about two inches wide, and in a short time had Dick bound as securely as if he had used moosehide thongs or manilla rope.
“Kind o’ hard on you, ain’t it, Buddy,” sympathised the sailor. “If it was me now, running this show, I’d let you go free. ’Cause we ain’t got no particular quarrel with you. But his nibs here seems to think that you require special attention.”
Dick and the sailor kept up a desultory conversation for the next two or three hours, the sailor doing most of the talking. He bitterly regretted the circumstances that had brought him here. He spoke contemptuously of his two companions. They were not his sort. He liked neither of them. During the day he had suffered from cold and exposure and had undergone a terrible agony caused by blistered feet. This was no country for a white man.
“If I had my wish right now, Buddy, I’d be aboard the ‘Elenore,’ steamin’ down along the coast,” he declared presently.
“You should have remained behind when the outlaws broke out of the warehouse,” Dick reminded him.
“What! Stay there, an’ later on get throwed into jail? I should say not. Even if I do have to suffer now, I can mebbe make my way back to the States somehow.”
“They’ll get you sooner or later,” Dick argued.
“Mebbe so, but I’ll take my chances.”
The room became more quiet. The old Indian and his wife and daughter retired to the loft, leaving the outlaws in full charge. The man, whom Dick had hurt in his leap from the top of the ladder, had recovered consciousness, but was as yet too dazed and shaken to do more than lie groaning in the corner, where he had been carried. His friend—he who had bound Dick—paid little attention either to this manifestation of suffering or to the conversation between Dick and the sailor. In a short time he had begun to drowse, chin on his chest, eyes half open. With a friendly nod to Dick, the sailor rose from his place by the fire, and, using his coat as a pillow, lay down upon the hard floor.
Two candles furnished light for the room. One had been placed on a shelf on the wall, the other on a small table by the door, leading to the kitchen. Except for the ruddy glare from the fireplace, there was no other light. When the other occupants of the room had fallen asleep, Dick rolled restlessly from side to side. Occasionally, his gaze fell upon the candles. Both had burned low, now flickering and fluttering eerily. The shadows deepened. When he awoke, following a fitful nap, one of the candles had gone out. The fire also had burned low. Its feeble red glow cast a weird and ghastly shaft of light across the floor. As Dick turned his face to the wall, the remaining taper sputtered and burned down.