“Hello!” he greeted that young man, “fixed it with the doctor all right?”
“Yes,” replied Newmark, in his brief, dry manner, “thanks! I think I ought to tell you that the sheriff is not at Spruce Rapids, but at the village—expecting trouble.”
Orde whistled, then broke into a roar of delight.
“Boys,” he called, “old Plug Hat's got the sheriff right handy. I guess he sort of expected we'd be thinking of cutting through that dam. How'd you like to go to jail?”
“I'd like to see any sheriff take us to jail, unless he had an army with him,” growled one of the river-jacks.
“Has he a posse?” inquired Orde of Newmark.
“I didn't see any; but I understood in the village that the governor had been advised to hold State troops in readiness for trouble.”
Orde fell into a brown study, eating mechanically. The men began an eager and somewhat truculent discussion full of lawless and bloodthirsty suggestion. Some suggested the kidnapping and sequestration of Reed until the affair should be finished.
“How'd he get hold of his old sheriff, then?” they inquired with some pertinence.
Orde, however, paid no attention to all this talk, but continued to frown into space. At last his face cleared, and he slapped down his tin plate so violently that the knife and fork jumped off into the dirt.