Freckles' heart
sank within him, but Jack was in a delirium and past all caution.
"Yes," he sneered. "Mebby all of you had better give over on the saw and
run after the girl. I guess not! Seems to me I got the favors. I didn't
see no bouquets on the rest of you! If anybody follows her, I do, and
I'm needed here among such a pack of idiots. There's no danger in that
baby face. She wouldn't give me away! You double and work like forty,
while me and Wessner will take the axes and begin to cut in on the other
side."
"What about the noise?" asked Wessner.
"No difference about the noise," answered Jack. "She took us to be from
McLean's gang, slick as grease. Make the chips fly!"
So all of them attacked the big tree.
Freckles sat on one of his benches and waited. In their haste to fell
the tree and load it, so that the teamsters could start, and leave them
free to attack another, they had forgotten to rebind him.
The Angel was on the trail and safely started. The cold perspiration
made Freckles' temples clammy and ran in little streams down his chest.
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