"I wish Cap Roche would come, so I call find out my fate," said Wild, though he did not mean it.
The longer the leader of the outlaws stayed away the better were his chances of being rescued by his partners.
"How do you know that Cap Roche is ther one that's goin' ter settle about your fate, Young Wild West?"
"Why, I have heard you fellows talking about him."
"Yer did, eh? I reckon yer never heard none of us say any more than Cap. We didn't say that Cap Roche had anything ter do with our crowd."
"Well, I thought you did."
"I don't know as it makes any difference, though. You ain't never goin' away from here alive. Ther toll that you'll pay is your life, Young Wild West! Cap Roche will soon say that."
"Maybe he will, and maybe he won't," retorted our hero, as calmly as though he was simply talking business with a friend. "Cap Roche might take a notion to let me go. His business at the store in Silver Bend might require him to do so."
"I reckon he'd be a fool ter let yer go. Where would he land if he did?'
"Well, if he made a deal with me he might land all right."