“We don’t want to talk; our time is out.”
“Don’t you mean to run the trip this afternoon?” demanded the colonel, whose face suddenly flushed, as he saw the trick of his employees.
“No, sir! We do not,” replied the captain, a gleam of satisfaction on his face, as he realized that he was punishing the great man.
“Don’t say a word, father. Let them go,” whispered Waddie.
“You will find that we are not slaves,” added the captain.
Colonel Wimpleton looked at his watch. It wanted only half an hour of the advertised time to start the boat for Ucayga. He looked at Waddie, looked at me, and then at the two men, who doubtless expected, by the means they had chosen, to bring him down from “the high horse.” I watched the great man with intense interest; and perhaps I was as much excited as any person in the room.
CHAPTER XII.
CAPTAIN WOLF PENNIMAN.
My impression now is that neither the captain nor the engineer really intended to throw up his situation. While I could not, and did not, blame them for refusing to submit to the savage abuse of Colonel Wimpleton, I did not think it was quite fair to spring this trap upon their employer within thirty minutes of the time the boat was to start. But the colonel was not altogether unreasonable in his complaints. The men did not use every exertion to be on time. There was fault on both sides.
The captain had been instructed not to lose his connection, even if he always went without the up-lake passengers. On this day, as I learned, he had failed to connect, though he had not waited for the Hitaca boat. Passengers were dissatisfied, and the new steamer was rapidly losing the favor of the traveling public.
Colonel Wimpleton, as he stood before the fire in his library, realized that these men were trying to punish him. The whispered words of Waddie evidently made their impression upon him. He curbed his wrath and was silent for a moment.