“Oh, that’s all very fine; but you spoiled our show. Come on now, Ralph, you young sneak. I’m going to fix you for getting cold feet.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Mr. Jesson calmly. “It’s evident to me from this boy’s story that you have treated him brutally. You could be proceeded against for the way you have abused him.”
“None of your business, is it, Mister Smart Alec?” demanded the man with the red necktie and the diamond. “I’m Josh Sawdon, the boss of this show, and I demand that boy. He was given us by his father to train.”
“That’s right,” declared his companion, with a vicious crack of his whip, “and we are going to do it, too. Come on, mister, give us that boy.”
“Have you got any papers to prove your right to him?” asked Mr. Jesson calmly.
“No, we ain’t,” sneered Sawdon, “at least, we ain’t got none to show you. Come on, now—give us that boy, or——”
“Well, or what?”
Mr. Jesson stared calmly at the man, who had stepped threateningly toward him. Sawdon stopped short. Something in the direct look of the bronzed explorer checked him.
“I am satisfied that you have no right to this lad,” said Mr. Jesson, in calm, even tones. “I am even better satisfied that you have used him shamefully. Therefore, we will take him under our protection till the matter can come up in the courts.”
“Hooray!” yelled the crowd, whose sympathies were plainly with the aerial party.