“The way it happened was just this,” said Silas, who could not stand in one place for a single moment. “Hold on there!” he added, turning fiercely upon his prisoner, who just then moved uneasily upon the bench, as if he were trying to find a softer spot to sit on. “I’ve got my eyes onto you, and you might as—”
“Why, father, he can’t get away,” Joe interposed. “You’ve got him tied up too tight. Why don’t you let out that rope a little?”
“’Cause he’s worth a pile of money—that’s why!” exclaimed Silas; “and I won’t let the rope out not one inch, nuther. You Joe, keep away from there.”
“I really wish you would undo some of this rope,” said the prisoner, who, like Byron’s Corsair, seemed to be a mild-mannered man. “I have been tied up ever since two o’clock, and am numb all over. I couldn’t run a step if I should try.”
“Don’t you believe a word of that!” exclaimed Silas. “Come away from there and let that rope be, I tell you.”
“Say, father,” said Joe, suddenly, “what are you going to do with your captive? Do you intend to sit up and watch him all night long?”
“I was just a-studying about that when you come up and scared me,” replied Silas,
dropping the butt of his gun to the ground, and leaning heavily upon the muzzle.
He never could stand alone for any length of time; he always wanted something to support him.
“What do you think I had better do about it? I don’t much like to keep him here, ’cause— Why, just look a-here, Joey,” added Silas, moving up to the door, and pointing to some object inside the cabin. “See them tools I took away from him?”