Then, sitting around the stove, they whispered among themselves, discussing what they had better do. Half a hundred possibilities occurred to their fertile fancies and replete memories. Men and women who have always led sheltered lives can little understand or know what a pirate must understand and know even to live let alone be successful.
“What’s Terabon up to?” Despard demanded. “Here he is, drappin’ down by Fort Pillow Landing, running around. Where’s that girl he had up above New Madrid? What’s his game? Coming up here and talking to us? Asking us all about the river and things—writin’ it for the newspapers?”
“That woman’s this Carline’s wife!” Jet sneered.
“Sure! An’ here’s Terabon an’ here’s Carline. Terabon don’t talk none about that woman—nor about Carline,” Dock grumbled.
“I bet Terabon would be sorry none if Carline hyar dropped out. Y’ know she’s Old Crele’s gal,” Jet 173 said. “Crele’s a good feller. Sent word down to have us take cyar of her, an’ Prebol, the fool, didn’t know ’er, hadn’t heard. Look what she give him, bang in the shoulder! That old Prophet’ll take cyar of him, course. See how hit works out. She shined up to Terabon, all right.”
“I ’low I better talk to him,” Despard suggested. “Terabon’s a good sport. He said, you’ know, that graftin’ and whiskey boatin’, an’ robbin’ the bank wa’n’t none of his business. He said, course, he could write it down in his notes, but without names, ’count of somebody might read somethin’ in them an’ get some good friend of his in Dutch. He said it wouldn’t be right for him to know about somebody robbin’ a commissary, or a bank, or killin’ somebody, because if somebody like a sheriff or detective got onto it, they might blame him, or somethin’.”
“I like that Terabon!” Jet declared. “Y’see how he is. He says he’s satisfied, makin’ a fair living, gettin’ notes so’s he can write them magazine stories, an’ if he was to try to rob the banks, he’d have to learn how, same’s writin’ for newspapers. An’ probably he wouldn’t have the nerve to do it really, ’count of his maw and paw bein’ the kind they was. He told me hisself that they made him go to Sunday school when he was a kid, an’ things like that spoil a man for graftin’. Stands to reason, all right, the way he talks. I like him; he knows enough to mind his own business.”
“He’s comin’ up to-night to go after geese on the bar. We’ll talk to him. He’ll look that business over, level-headed. That motorboat any good?”
“Nothin’ extra. He’s got ready money, though, I forgot that,” Despard grinned, walking over to the hapless victim of his black-jack skill.
The three divided nearly thirteen hundred dollars 174 among them. The money made them good humoured and they had some compassion for their prisoner. One of them noticed that a skiff was coming up from Fort Pillow Landing, and fifteen minutes later Terabon was talking to Despard on the snag to one prong of which was fastened the line of Carline’s motorboat.