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When the men reached the trail, Freckles yelled at the top of his voice: "Head them off on the south, boys! Fire from the south!" As he had hoped, Jack and Wessner instantly plunged into the swale. A spattering of lead followed them. They crossed the swale, running low, with not even one backward glance, and entered the woods beyond the corduroy. Then the little party gathered at the tree.
"Now for the answer," he said. "Stand up!" There was iron in his voice, and he was commanding as an outraged general. "Anything, you want to be taking off?" he questioned. Wessner looked the astonishment he felt. "Why, no, Freckles," he said. "Have the goodness to be calling me Mister McLean," snapped Freckles. "I'm after resarvin' me pet name for the use of me friends!
I think his sole intention in forcing me to discharge him from my gang was to come here and try to steal timber. We had no idea, when we took the lease, what a gold mine it was." "That's exactly what Wessner said that first day," said Freckles eagerly.
After they were from sight and he was safely hidden among the branches of a small tree, he remembered that he neither had thanked them nor said good-bye. Considering what they had been through, they never would come again. His heart sank until he had palpitation in his wading-boots. Stretching the length of the limb, he thought deeply, though he was not thinking of Black Jack or Wessner.
It must be looked into thorough. Just you wait here until I do a minute's turn in the swamp, and then I'll be eschorting you out of the clearing and giving you the answer." Freckles lifted the overhanging bushes and hurried to the case. He unslung the specimen-box and laid it inside with his hatchet and revolver. He slipped the key in his pocket and went back to Wessner.
Freckles shot over the handlebar and coasted down the trail on his chest. As he struck, Black Jack and Wessner were upon him. Wessner caught off an old felt hat and clapped it over Freckles' mouth, while Black Jack twisted the boy's arms behind him and they rushed him into his room. Almost before he realized that anything had happened, he was trussed to a tree and securely gagged.
When we get our plan worked out, even old fool Duncan won't lift a finger to look for his carcass. We couldn't have him going in better shape." "You just bet," said Wessner. "I owe him all he'll get, and be damned to you, but I'll pay!" he snarled at Freckles. So it was killing, then. They were not only after this one tree, but many, and with his body it was their plan to kill his honor.
He glanced vaguely around him until he saw his club, seized and twirled it as a drum major, stuck it upright in the muck, and marched on tiptoe to Wessner, mechanically, as a puppet worked by a string. Bending over, Freckles reached an arm around Wessner's waist and helped him to his feet. "Careful, now" he cautioned, "be careful, Freddy; there's danger of you hurting me."
Freckles gripped the cudgel until his knuckles slowly turned purple. "And are you railly saying so?" he inquired with elaborate politeness. "Yes, I am," said Wessner. "So would every man of the gang if they wasn't too big cowards to say anything, unless maybe that other slobbering old Scotchman, Duncan. Grinding the lives out of us!
"Well, it's good telling if you're glad to see me," said Wessner, with something very like a breath of relief. "We been hearing down at the camp you were so mighty touchy you didn't allow a man within a rod of the line." "No more do I," answered Freckles, "if he's a stranger, but you're from McLean, ain't you?" "Oh, damn McLean!" said Wessner.
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