"'Course; what more could ye expect arter the way he got us to go out with him to cover up that hole again? Andy's got religion, I reckon; leastways he ain't the same kind o' a feller he was," declared Pet.
"But he turned on you mighty quick, I noticed, an' sed as how he'd wipe up the ground with your remains if you jest didn't go along and help undo our work. He kin fight yet, even if he is changed," said the fellow who hung discreetly on the outskirts of the group, and who was evidently a devoted follower of the said Andy.
"Jest mind yer own business, Tom Somers, an' speak when yer spoken to. Guess I know that yer intendin' to stick to Andy through thick an' thin. But they ain't everybody feelin' that way, understand? If Andy he's a-goin' to turn on us and be chummy with that crowd, we ain't expectin' to stand it, see?" declared Pet, still struggling with the obstreperous knot.
"Them's my sentiments," observed another.
"Me, too, fellers?" declared a second.
"Yes, it's easy for ye to talk that ways when he ain't around; but let him give any one o' ye a single look an' it's eat dirt for the lot. Ain't I seen it done many a time? An' some day Andy's goin' to give Pet the time o' his life," the single faithful henchman kept saying.
"Oh, let up, Tom! Ain't any one o' ye got a knife? I can't never get this here knot untied. Hand it here, Billy. Now watch the fun, fellers," and as he spoke Pet opened a blade of the borrowed knife, and proceeded to lay it across the cord.
To judge by the way he sawed, that blade was too dull to cut butter.
"What d'ye call this thing, anyhow, Billy? One side's about as sharp as t'other, an' a feller couldn't commit suicide, if he tried to, with this frog-sticker."
"Try mine," said the fellow who owned a camera.