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A horse clattered up from behind at a pace not in keeping with the rough footing, and the rider drew level with Kitchell. "Soldiers comin’, Colonel. Got ’em a couple o’ them Pima Scouts sniffin’ th’ trail an’ some o’ Rennie’s men with ’em, too!" "It ain’t true!" Shannon’s protest was loud. "I seed em—bright an’ clear—mos’ up to where we stopped last.
Shannon’s thumb indicated Drew. "I don’t see how he can get away. Hurry up!" Johnny dismounted with visible reluctance, but not before he blasted Drew’s hopes by looping the reins of the captive’s horse around his own saddle horn. And in addition Kitchell stood there with drawn gun. They had disposed of the body and Johnny was back when a sudden command boomed out of the air. "Freeze!"
Kitchell had long since abandoned his coat and vest. Wilbur's oilskins became intolerable, and he was at last constrained to trade his pocket-knife to Charlie for a suit of jeans and wicker sandals, such as the coolies wore and odd enough he looked in them.
"Kin you row, son? asked Kitchell, with sudden suspicion. Wilbur smiled. "You ask Charlie and Wing to ship their oars and give me a pair." The Captain complied, hesitating. "Now, what," he said grimly, "now, what do you think you're going to do, sonny?" "I'm going to show you the Bob Cook stroke we used in our boat in '95, when we beat Harvard," answered Wilbur.
Above all things, the brute Kitchell must not be shown that a girl was aboard the schooner on which he had absolute command, nor, setting the question of Moran's sex aside, must Kitchell know her even as the dead Captain's heir. There was a difference in the men here, and Wilbur appreciated it.
He ran over the incidents of the cruise Kitchell, the turtle hunt, the finding of the derelict, the dead captain, the squall, and the awful sight of the sinking bark, Moran at the wheel, the grewsome business of the shark-fishing, and last of all that inexplicable lifting and quivering of the schooner. He told himself that now he would probably never know the explanation of that mystery.
Anyway, this far from payday I kin count up mosta m’ roll without takin’ it outta m’ pocket." "This Kitchell...think it’s true that some of the ranchers are really helpin’ him?" "Don’t know. Might be he’s tryin’ to play th’ deuce against th’ whole deck. Lessen he lives on th’ kind of whisky as would make a rabbit up an’ spit in a grizzly’s eye hole, he’s got somethin’—or someone—to back him.
"Well, you see, son," Kitchell had explained to Wilbur, "os-tensiblee we are after shark-liver oil and so we are; but also we are on any lay that turns up; ready for any game, from wrecking to barratry. Strike me, if I haven't thought of scuttling the dough-dish for her insoorance. There's regular trade, son, to be done in ships, and then there's pickin's an' pickin's an' pickin's.
For the life of him he could not make the thing seem right or legal in his eyes, and yet he had neither the wish nor the power to stay his hand or interfere with what Kitchell was doing. The Captain put the blade of the axe in the chink of the secretary's door and wrenched it free. It opened down to form a sort of desk, and disclosed an array of cubby-holes and two small doors, both locked.
Kitchell as though she did not wish him to misinterpret her leaving his class-room that day of the first examination, "outside of class, you would not have thought of such a thing as questioning our word or our honesty, yet by your way of conducting an examination, you did both." "That is true in part. I questioned the honor of some. Class honor, I should say.
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