Van shrugged his shoulders.
"Sentenced for life. All right, Algy, if your cooking kills us off, at least, as the brave young husband remarked, it will all be in the family."
Algy still looked as fierce as one of his heathen idols.
"You t'ink velly smart," he said, still concealing his feelings. "Lats!" and with that he went out to chop some wood.
"Batten me into the pantry!" said Napoleon. "I'll bet old Algy'd board the outlaw himself, fer you, Van, squall and all."
"That horse ain't human," Gettysburg exploded anew. "Van, you can't ride no such Fourth-of-July procession!"
"Shut up!" murmured Van, with a gesture towards the room where Beth and her maid were dining. He added aloud: "The chances are we'll find he's a cheap Sunday-school picnic. Napoleon, you and Cayuse go out and prepare his mind for work."
"Aye, aye," said Napoleon rising to go, "but I wish we had some soothin' syrup, skipper."
He and the Indian were heard to depart, by Beth, sitting back in her chair. She was greatly alarmed by all she had heard of vengeful convicts and the vicious horse, and could eat no more for nervous dread.
"That horse has killed his man, and you know it," said Gettysburg in a whisper that the girl distinctly overhead. "Boy, boy, let the Injun ride him first."