"Certainement! tam sure t'ing," Pierre assured him, with a burst of good humor. "Wat Ah tell you?–we catch heem! Saprie, yes–on de leetle cache par le Grand Reedge–n'est-ce-pas, Rex, mon camarade?"
"That's correct," laughed Britton, "we hit it just right! A little later and we should have had a stern chase. Make a jail, Laurance, to hold the rascal."
"Roll him in by the stove," ordered Jim. "He won't give us any ha-ha. I'll bet me best mukluks on that." Presently, as the man was taken inside and the bonds loosed, he added: "Don't calculate for a minnit you can vamoose–for you truly can't. Me Winchester'll stop such tom-fool notions." Laurance pointed to the sinister-outlined rifle above the door.
When the light fell upon the captive's features, the two men who had brought him in recoiled involuntarily.
"Le diable!" hissed Giraud, as if some hideously unpleasant truth were forcing its utterance in spite of him.
"The devil!" echoed Britton; "that's it, Pierre. No more fitting description could be given. Look at the high cheekbones, vulture-shaped features, and hellish eyes. Good Lord, Jim, did you ever see such an ugly man?"
Rex backed to a seat and began to divest himself of his outer garments, all the while regarding the cache-thief with critical eyes in which a light of discovery was dawning.
"Looks like a cross 'tween a 'Frisco wharf-rat and a Nome claim-jumper," Laurance averred. "Say, mister, was you ever forty-second cook round a scullery?–'cause you smells it!"
The captive vouchsafed no reply. He sat with his Satanic-shaped head buried between narrow shoulders. The firelight licked his face at intervals, strengthening its horrible grotesqueness.
"W'iskey mak' heem talk," Pierre declared. "Got de fire-wataire, M'sieu Laurance?"