“Well, I guess that ought to settle him for a while.”
With perspiration trickling down into his eyes, Dick looked up. Raoul stood with a small stick of wood in his hands and close beside him Sandy, a look of triumph on his face, each surveying their now helpless foe.
“You didn’t hit him half hard enough, Raoul,” Sandy protested. “It was a good thing for him that I didn’t have that club, myself. I might have killed him.”
“Hit ’em plenty hard,” Raoul confessed, tossing the stick back toward the fireplace. “Tie him up easy now. I go get rope.”
Dick and Toma rose to their feet and a moment later Raoul returned with a rope. Bound hand and foot, Watson was lifted bodily and carried across the room, where he was deposited not unkindly in the selfsame bunk occupied by Sandy on the previous night. Dick breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m glad that’s over with,” he declared thankfully. “All things considered, we’ve been pretty lucky so far. We’ve beaten Govereau at every turn.”
“Beaten but not licked,” Sandy reminded him. “I’ll have to admit right here that he’s a mighty tough customer. It’s a good thing Toma saw this man, Watson, before. Otherwise things might have turned out differently.”
“We must get an early start in the morning,” said Dick, as he moved back toward the supper table. “I’d hate to meet any more visitors from Govereau’s camp. If Raoul is willing, I’ll pay him tonight for the team of huskies. What do you think would be a fair price for them, Toma?”
“Raoul say he willing to sell for two hundred dollars,” answered the guide. “That very cheap for good team like that.”
“I’ll make it two hundred and fifty. The additional amount wouldn’t begin to pay him for all the kindness he has shown us.”