“By the open plain?”
“Yes—that away.”
“No—he would not be likely. There’s only one way I can explain it: he must have come as far as the gate along with the general, and then kept down the stockade, and past the sutler’s house—that’s likely enough.”
This was said by Ringgold in a sort of half soliloquy.
“Devils?” he exclaimed in an impatient tone, “we’ll not get such a chance soon again.”
“Ne’er a fear, Master Arens,” said Williams—“ne’er a fear. Plenty o’ chances, I kalkerlate—gobs o’ chances sech times as these.”
“We’ll make chances,” pithily added Spence, who now spoke for the first time in my hearing.
“Ay, but here was a chance for Jake—he must do it, boys; neither of you must have a hand in it. It might leak out; and then we’d all be in a pretty pickle. Jake can do it, and not harm himself, for he’s dead, you know, and the law can’t reach him! Isn’t it so, my yellow boy?”
“Carrambo! si, señor. No fear have, Don Aren Ringgol; ’for long, I opportunity find. Jake you get rid of enemy—never hear more of him; soon Yellow Jake good chance have. Yesterday miss. She bad gun, Don Aren—not worth shuck gun.”
“He has not yet returned inside the fort,” remarked Ringgold, again speaking in a half soliloquy. “I think he has not. If no, then he should be at the camp. He must go back to-night. It may be after the moon goes down. He must cross the open ground in the darkness. You hear, Jake, what I am saying?”