Instantly Charley gave the signal to stop firing. As it ceased, a man stepped out into the open, bearing the flag of truce in his hand.
Charley laid down his smoking rifle and leaped lightly over the barricade.
"Don't go to meet him, Charley," Walter implored, "anyone of those murderers are likely to take a pot shot at you. Do come back."
"Better listen to the lad, Charley," said the captain, earnestly. "You can't count on that gang respecting a truce flag. Don't go, my boy."
But Charley only smiled determinedly. "I want to hear what he has to say, and I don't want him to see the weak points in our barricade," he said, "besides, the other day, I was noticing that fellow coming. Criminal he may be, but he is far too good for the company he's in. I've got a feeling that he would not stand to be a decoy. Here goes, anyway. Don't worry."
Midway of the open space the two met. The convict was a young man, with a dark, handsome face and bold, reckless eyes. He greeted the young hunter as coolly as though they were meeting for a pleasant social chat.
"I came because the rest were afraid," he explained, cheerfully, eyeing the other from head to foot with cool assurance. "They are so crooked and treacherous themselves that they think that your companions will do as they would do,—not hesitate to fire on the bearer of a white flag."
"They have a good chance at me now," said Charley with a smile.
The stranger grinned as he skilfully rolled a cigarette with one hand. "I gave them to understand before I left that they would have to reckon with me if they tried any such trick," he remarked, cheerfully. "I guess that will keep the brutes quiet for a while. But let's get down to business. I have," he said ironically, "the distinguished honor to be their messenger, but first let me say that, although with that gang of beasts, I am not of them. I've killed my man, but it was in fair fight, and not by a knife in the back. I have no kick coming over what the law dealt out to me. Furthermore, if I had known the animals, I would have to travel with, I would not have let my longing for freedom draw me away from the turpentine camp. Lord knows, I wish I was back there now." His voice, which had grown earnest, dropped again into a sarcastic note. "But I am wandering, as I said before, my noble, gallant friends have made me their messenger and agent. It will help you to understand their demands if I state that the afternoon's work has been far from satisfactory. So many of the canoes were overturned that the plumes secured will not amount to more than seven hundred dollars where my friends expected to reap as many thousand as the fruit of their labor."
"Come to the point," said Charley, impatiently, his eyes shifting anxiously to the declining sun.